psychology of social media -- portfolio
DESCRIPTION
An introduction to my approach as a social psychologist in the technology industry, with highlightsof of past projects and the trajectory of my research.TRANSCRIPT
Psychology of Social Media: Implication for Design
Shelly D. Farnham, Ph.D.
Dec 03 2009
Yahoo
Agenda
My background and approach Psychology of social media Brief overview of past research trajectory Deeper discussion of two recent projects –>
technology and building real world community CoCollage Pathable
My Background: Industry R&D Specialize in social media
Social networks, community, identity, mobile
Early stage innovation Extremely rapid R&D cycle Study, brainstorm, design, prototype,
deploy, evaluate (repeat) Convergent evaluation methodologies:
interviews, questionnaires, usage analysis
Career PhD in Social Psych from UW 7 years Microsoft Research 4 years startup world
Personal Map
Research and Development Process
meeting social goals
Party Report 41%
Invitation 18%
Question 16%
Bond Building 15%
Request 1%
Party report w ith address
9%
Importance of Information in selecting chat partner
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Rank
Rating
Similarity
Interacts with friends
Ratings by friends
Core Problem
Human social behavior evolved in different context than what we have today
We are still figuring out how to interact via tech How is it different? How do we make it even better?
Why Interact through Technology? At a distance, over time Access to greater number of
people More frequent, continues access Interactions archived Integrate with digital content Identity and context manipulation Large scale collaboration,
coordination
Social Psychological Approach Understanding users
Individuals Social dynamics: pairs, groups,
networks
Social engineering Technologies as social
environments Technologies as interventions
Socially intelligent Use understanding of social
processes to inform design
Example
Design goal: a profile and matchmaking system to increase likelihood of two people finding each other and having a successful dating experience
Understanding Attraction Predictors of attraction
similarity frequency of exposure People I like like you
(Balance theory)
Predictors of matching Similarity of “level”
(matching hypothesis)
Process Reciprocal self-disclosure
Impact on Design Match on similarity in
demographics, lifestyle Provide opportunities for
frequent exposure, interaction Match based on equivalence in
desirability Put in social context (see
friends, friends of friends) Varying levels of
communication: pseudonymous, identified, asynchronous, realtime
Design Principles Defining user’s goals
Social goals To like myself That others like me Sense of belonging
Mastery, self-efficacy Implicit vs. explicit
What are People Using Top Facebook Applications For?
community
dating
misc fortunes
naming
social good
play game
play with digital pet
events
media sharing
tell me about me
send gift
profile enhancement
social selection
play social game
social comparison
enhanced communication
Design Principles
Take perspective of user What is there, and what think is
there, not always the same People respond to what they *think*
is there Behavior is function of person
and situation To predict and change behavior,
must understand all the forces Some internal, some physical,
MANY SOCIAL
http://synapticstimuli.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/force_fields.jpg
Design Principles
The best social technologies are “invisible” to the user need usability, to achieve
sociability Social translucence
Visibility, awareness, accountability
Influential Early Research (1999) HutchWorld Study:
#1 reason patients used Internet was to interact with family and friends, not to meet other cancer patients/caregivers
Mall Study:
How do people naturally model their social relations? Relationships and groups In terms of importance to self Dynamic and idiosyncratic
0 1 2 3
Face to faceEmailsPhone
Mailing listsSMS
Chat/IMBlogs
Web communityOnline games
Hours per day
35
35.5
36
36.5
37
37.5
38
38.5
39
39.5
40
Rel
atio
nsh
ip S
atis
fact
ion
Email in Relationship
Dating Committed
No
Yes
N = 46 N = 82 N = 110 N = 94
Early Studies of Social Technologies
Importance of Information in selecting chat partner
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
Rank
Rating
Similarity
Interacts with friends
Ratings by friends
social support
community
dating
Profiles and matchmaking
Social Networking, Community, Identity, Mobile (2000-2005)
User studies
MSR Connections
Personal Map
Point to Point
Wallop
Visualizing and interacting with personal and corporate social networks
Similarity based on interaction behavior, co-occurrence in communication groups
Enables dynamic network Extract meaningful
collections/groups via cluster analysis
Personal MapAutomatically organize contacts in a way that is meaningful/intuitive to user
Shelly Farnham::Will Portnoy
Similarity (A B) = (sum (AB * significance))/sqrt(A * B)Grouped using hierarchical cluster analysis
Infers implicit social groups from communication behavior in email
Provide sense of who’s important
Dynamic, changes as levels of interaction change
Minimal maintenance required
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
4500
5000
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34 37 40 43 46 49
Size of Distribution List
At Microsoft:75,000 mailing lists,each person belongs to on average 11 mailing lists
Social network info presented relative to self
Shelly Farnham::Will Portnoy
Point to Point User Studiesfacilitate knowledge exchange by exploiting corporate social network information
Point to Point User Study I
Rank of Similarity to User (1 = Most Similar)
383430262218141062
Prop
orti
on o
n L
ist
.8
.7
.6
.5
.4
.3
.2
.1
0.0
People most similar to the user tended to also be on the user’s
list of coworkers.
Rank of Similarity to User (1 = Most Similar)
383430262218141062
Prop
orti
on C
ross
ed O
ff M
ap
.8
.7
.6
.5
.4
.3
.2
.1
0.0
People most similar to the user were not crossed off map
as not belonging.
39 employees completed task Participants listed 15 closest co-workers, used to assess
accuracy of point to point map
Point to Point User Study II 17 employees completed 16 choices using Point to Point Study design: Participants decided between two randomly selected people
whom they would like to meet for knowledge exchange
Relative Status
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
Overlapping People
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
Unchosen
Chosen
Organizational Distance
10.8
11.1
11.4
11.7
12.0
12.3
12.6
12.9
network information affected decision-making
Mobile Social and Hyper-coordination:Supporting Life Cycle of Events
Joe
Amy
Bob
Jen
Apart Together Apart (Repeat)
Joe Amy
Bob Jen
Joe
Bob
Amy
Jen
Shelly to coffee: caffeine?
Swarm:GroupText messaging
Slam:Groups, messaging, photo sharing for the smartphone
Groove Field Deployment Study After Katrina hurricane,
economy at a stand still, largely evacuated
Microsoft effort, Groove deployment to relief workers Secure, peer to peer
collaboration Enables sharing and
synchronization across locations, while mobile, with intermittent Internet access
Ideal for ad hoc, cross organizational collaboration
Waggle Labs (2006-2009) Social Media R&D Consulting and Incubation
CoCollage (Strands)
Swaggle (group text messaging)
Zillow community
Teen Focus Group (MSR)
Social Web 2.0
Pathable
Trusera
Reality AllStarz
Facebook analysis
City of SeattleMyTwee
Distribution of Daily Activity in Top Applications, Measured in Share of Total Daily Active Usage (28.4 million total, averaged for week ending 11/18/07)
What are People Using Top Facebook Applications For?
community
dating
misc fortunes
naming
social good
play game
play with digital pet
events
media sharing
tell me about me
send gift
profile enhancement
social selection
play social game
social comparison
enhanced communication
User Goals for Facebook Apps
CoCollage
The Strands Community Collage (CoCollage™) promotes awareness, interactions and communityin third places where people seek conversation and connection.
Web site for sharing and conversationLarge display showing “Community Collage”
Third Places Semi-public places away
from home (first places) and work (second places)
People gather to enjoy conversation with friends and strangers
Facilitate community development frequent serendipitous
interactions increased likelihood of
developing web of interpersonal relationships
Existing “Technologies” for Community Development in Third Places
Challenging to get to know who comes regularly over time, what they are like, and start conversations
CoCollage: Expanding Impact of Place
asynchronous awareness, sharing and conversation
in café or at home
synchronousawareness and conversation
in cafe
web site
large display
People and profiles
Shared items (photos & quotes)
Commenting, voting
Uploading
Messaging
The big screen
CoCollage Features
Early Deployment Study Procedure
Deploy to local coffee shop: Trabant, working closely with owners
Observations, interviews and questionnaire
Goals develop a better understanding of
the psycho-social factors that would impact adoption and use
get immediate feedback for iteratively improving design
explore how best to measure place-based community development for future studies
Factors Expected to Influence Adoption and Use The size and activity of the existing
community the extent to which the individual
has a desire to meet others through the café
the individual’s existing levels of psychological sense of community and place attachment to the café
Place Attachment Rosenbaum et al. in study of a suburban diner People who experienced social support through
diner, developed place attachment – bond between person and place
Used items that loaded highly on three factors: Functional dependency: “I get more satisfaction out of Trabant than
other cafes” Commitment: “I really care about the fate of Trabant” Identification with self: “The success of Trabant is my success”
Sense of Community
Place Attachment
Questionnaire: Existing Community Size of their existing café network:
58% had at least one acquaintance in café, of those averaging 4.2 each 25% had at least one personal friend, of those averaging 2.8 each
Psycho social factors: Satisfied with café (M = 5.6)* Lukewarm in sense of community (M = 3.5)* Place attachment on dependency (M = 5.4)* and commitment (M = 5.3)*
factors, but less so on identity (M = 3.4)*
Desire to connect with others 56% had some or more interest in meeting others at the café suggests roughly half of regulars would want to join CoCollage
*on scale of 1 to 7, where 1 = not at all and 7 = extremely so
Raw Correlations
Bolded items are statistically significant at p < .05.
Of 69 who completed questionnaire, 24 also joined CoCollage
Sense of community, place attachment, and desire to connect correlated with whether joined CoCollage
CoCollage Usage 82 users in first month
Primary usage: create a profile browse other profiles upload images View others’ images
Significant correlation between desire to make friends and number of comments
(r = .43, p < .05) number of unique days they
have returned to the system
(r = .43, p < .05)Percentage of users who engaged in each type of activity, with means
A Month Later: Impact on Place Attachment
Time 1 Time 25.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
5.7
5.8
5.9
6
6.1
6.2P
lace
Atta
chm
ent -
- D
epen
denc
y
CoCollage Users' had More Place Attachment at Time 2
A Month Later: Impact on Neighboring
Time 1 Time 20
0.5
1
1.5
2
2.5
3
3.5
Sesn
e of
Com
mun
ity --
Nei
ghbo
ring
CoCollage Users' had More a Sense of "Neighboring" at Time 2
CoCollage Study Conclusions Within first month, decent adoption
82 out of roughly 400 regulars joined CoCollage in the first month Questionnaire results shows that people who
a) are looking to connect with others
b) already have a psychological sense of community at the café
c) already feel place attachment to the café,
are more likely to join CoCollage and start conversations CoCollage did have impact on attachment and
neighboring over time
Psychological sense of community for place and place attachment are meaningful constructs in predicting adoption of a place-based community technology
Pathable: Leveraging Social Media for Professional Social Networking Whom do I most want to meet, in the limited
time available to me? How do I meet them?
EIBTM’s WorldWide Technology Watch Award for 2009
Social Networking at Events World wide over 1.2 million professional events
each year, adding up to a hundred billion dollar industry
Why? Learning Meeting people!
Forming connections with clients and colleagues Face-to-face for developing trust face-to-face for informal idea and knowledge sharing via
conversation
Building Community at Events In early interviews with conference organizers,
they listed building community as a primary goal
Why do event attendees and event hosts at professional events care about building community?
What is Community
"I define "community" as networks of interpersonal ties that provide sociability, support, information, a sense of belonging, and social identity.”
– Barry Wellman (2001)
Cupcake Society
Why Do Event Attendees Care about Community?
Sure!
Hey, I’m a member of
the Cupcake Society
too!
Can I borrow some sugar?
Sure!
Take my
recipe, too!
Community groups enable transitive relationships Powerfully increase social capital through simple act of joining
community Communities of practice: group of people interested in content
domain, shared practices increase effectiveness of members
Why Host Cares about Community
We expect that sense of community at events increases attendee loyalty.
Designing Pathable: Leveraging Social Media for Face to Face Professional Social Networking
Whom do I most want to meet, in the limited time available to me?
How do I meet them?
How do we become a “social tie”? How do we become a community?
Who is here? Who do I want to meet?
So
cial Netw
orks
So
cial S
cien
tist
Reality
AllS
tar
Med
ia Startu
p
Research startu
p
So
cia
l Tec
h
Blo
gH
er
Blo
gg
er
com
mu
nity
Co
mm
un
ity
blogger
social technology
Exploration at Seattle Mind Camp 3
75 people provided tags for self, organization, related people, related events
Pathable Community and
social networking tools for conferences
Community Dashboard
Profiles Attendee directory Match-making Messaging Integration (blog,
twitter, LinkedIn) Wiki (Wetpaint) Schedule
Design Themes The event host is a connector and community
moderator Rich information with minimal effort Social tags are used as pivots of awareness,
connection, and communication Professional match matching for improved
people finding Incorporate communication back channels
Profile
Per event
Profile
User can prepopulate from past event
Host can prepopulate, e.g. for speakers
Attendee Directory Searchable
Tag-centric Most used
feature
Conversation To all, or tags Subscribe to
mailing list
Contacts
Added through bookmarking
Tweet Stream Live updates
Host Manager
Face to Face Integration Using existing technologies:
Mobile Badges Printable calendar Visualization
Personalized Badge
Match-making Best matches possible, with minimal effort in
profiles Based on predictors of successful matches:
Common interests Same roles
Job title Host provided categories
Co-location By geography By events
Existing shared groups and communities Weighted sum to produce ordered list
Pathable BarCamp Seattle Study Questions:
how important is social networking at events can Pathable help?
BarCamp Seattle is a free, two-day conference held for Web 2.0
280 people registered for the event using Pathable
78 people total (76% male and 24% female) completed the questionnaire, 18 at the event and 60 afterwards online
Primary Goal in Coming to Event
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
70%
80%
Have Fun Be Inspired Learn Meet Others
Primary Goals in Coming to Event
Per
cen
t
People Came to BarCamp Primarily to Network, and then to Learn
Correlations between Event Features and Intention to Return Will Come Back
Event Feature Next Year
Years to Come
r
r
Number of people met .26 .12
Professional friends at event .31 .01
Satisfaction with sessions .63 .59
Satisfaction with conversations .80 .62
Professional suport .41 .39
Sense of community .44 .78
Event attachment
dependency .62 .73
commitment .67 .79
identificaiton .31 .49
Bolded items are statistically significant at p < .05.
Sense of community and event attachment highly correlation r = .81
Pathable Usage Everyone registered through Pathable, about half actively used the system
60% actively browsed directory 47% actively browsed messages 19% actively sent messages 43% intended to use directory after event 55% intended to use communication features after event
If they said they came to event only to learn, less likely to use Pathable (t = 2.6, p < .02)
The higher the usage, the more they said it helped them meet people (r = .65, p < .001)
No correlation between usage and raw count of people met Usage correlated with count of professional friends at event (r = .36, p < .01)
**percentages for those who indicated at least somewhat or quite a bit
Impact on Professional Network
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
low high
Impact of Pathable on Size of Network
Num
ber o
f pr
ofes
sion
alfr
iend
s at
eve
nt
Pathable Usage
Impact on Attachment and Sense of Community
2
3
4
5
6
Event Attachment (Ident) Sense of Community
Low
High
PathableUsage:
Impact of Pathable Usage
Rat
ing
on L
iker
tSc
ale
Impact of Usage by Feature
Pathable helped attendees meet others the more they browsed the attendee directory
(r = .37, p < .005) the more they browsed attendee messages
(r = .43, p < .005) the more they sent messages
(r =.54, p < .005) the more they used the match-making feature (r = .66, p < .005)
Figure 9. Life cycle of Pathable activity before, during and after event
Life Cycle of a Pathable-enabled Event Gnomedex
Can create an active community with minimal effort
Two emails Seeded initial
profiles Seeded
conversations
Seeding the Community Ensure the community feels full from the start Model the desired behavior
Invite the organizers, speakers, volunteers to complete a profile first
Author the speaker/high status profiles Seed representative tags Seed type of conversation hoped for Send personal invitations
Leveraging Match-making Features Nurturing tags
Use badges Use color coded categories
Provides overview Easy point of conversation Examples
Job types: developer, designer, marketer
Interests: blogging, podcasting, and mobile
Person types: creative vs. geek
Personality: introvert, extrovert Integrate with face to face
Introductions Birds of a feather meetings
People Loved Badges
and blogged about them!
Themes and Conclusions Mission
Help people meet goals through social technologies
Incorporate psychology of social media Clearly define user goals Examine psycho-social context of technology to influence design Prototyping and *early* deployment to assess technology’s ability to
meet goals
Broad conclusions Important to map natural social processes into social technologies People are *always* seeking to develop social relationships, even in
professional environmentspeople, networks, and groups as primary content
Networking and community technologies can and SHOULD meaningfully impact face-to-face interactions