Tuesday, September 30, 2014

still more summaries



38. Summary #1: Inferring Gender from the Content of Tweets: A Region Specific Example

More and more people are interested in employing social media sites like Twitter to collect real-time data about the attitudes and viewpoints of population in a region. Nevertheless, people’s important points of view and reactions greatly vary based on their gender and ethnicity. On the other hand, the information about people’s gender and ethnicity is not always available on these social media sites. Therefore, automatic methods are needed to deduce these implicit attributes. Fink et al. (2012) presented an automatic method to estimate Twitter users’ gender from their tweet content. A Supervised machine learning technique, in which features of training a classifier were extracted from tweet content, was applied on Twitter users in Nigeria, Africa. As a result, tweet content could be a good indicator to predict people’s gender because 80% of estimations are correct. Moreover, it was found that gentlemen and women have some differences in topic and emotion. Finally, the proposed method was argued to provide us an opportunity to know who is using social media. (FL)

Fink, C. et al. (2012). Inferring Gender from the Content of Tweets: A Region Specific Example. In Proceedings of the Sixth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (Dublin, Ireland, June 4-7, 2012). Available from: http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM12/paper/viewFile/4644%26lt%3B/5031 (Accessed date: Sept. 22, 2014)

37. Summary #2: Understanding the Demographics of Twitter Users

In every instance, Twitter records millions of people’s ideas and feelings around the world in the form of tweets that are less than 140 characters. However, who is using Twitter? Does the Twitter population represent the entire population? These questions still can not be answered, because we do not understand the Twitter population well, although Twitter was considered to have a huge potential. In this paper, Misolve et al. (2011) for the first time tried to analyze Twitter user data that represents greater than 1% of the U.S.A population to answer these questions. Techniques were developed to tell the differences between the Twitter population and the U.S.A population in gender, geography and ethnicity/race. Moreover, it was found that the Twitter population is a highly uneven sample of the U.S.A population. (FL)

Mislove, A. et al. (2011). Understanding the Demographics of Twitter Users. In Proceedings of the Fifth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (Barcelona, Spain, July 17-21, 2011). Available from: http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM11/paper/viewFile/2816/3234 (Accessed date: Sept. 22, 2014)

Sunday, September 28, 2014

Summaries, 3rd assignment

36. Summary: Two new Facebook scams could steal your personal information

According to this article, two scams are newly emerging to steal personal information through Facebook. The first scam is a shared post, which is designed to reward a free iPhone 6 after taking a quick survey. Facebook users’ personal information is stolen when filling names, addresses, cellphone numbers, and other kinds of information for such an online survey. Simultaneously, Facebook users’ friends might be cheated due to their sharing such website links with friends. The other scam is designed to place adware and malicious code after sharing a fake video named "Girl killed by husband just because she kissed another man." A plugin is required to be installed if Facebook users want to share this video. Unfortunately, an executable file will also be installed in personal computers, which can steal personal information. Thus, in order to avoid being cheated Facebook users should not take any surveys offering free stuff or share websites for watching videos. (YL)

Two new Facebook scams could steal your personal information. (2014, Sept. 17).
http://abc7chicago.com/technology/dont-fall-for-these-2-new-facebook-scams/312373/. (last accessed: Sep 19, 2014)

35. Summary: Five tips for college students using Facebook for the job search


According to this article, recently, Facebook provides an online job hunting platform for students. In this article, five tips are well explained about how to efficiently usw this new function. Appropriate privacy settings are the first step for attracting the eyes of your ideal workplaces. Profile pictures on Facebook accounts determine the first impressions for recruitment companies, so it is better to upload the pictures in profiles catering to the employers’ styles. The third thing is to how to interact with recruitment companies. Enthusiasm for the jobs is the most important to express to employers. Becoming members of groups related with your interest helps you provide strong evidence that you are competent in such kind of work. Additionally, joining network is an easy way to get more useful job searching information. (YL)

Lytle, R. (2011, Nov. 10). Five tips for college students using Facebook for the job search. US News.
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/2011/11/10/5-tips-for-college-students-using-facebook-for-the-job-search (Last accessed: Sep 19, 2014)

34. Summary 1: Trends in Social Media: Persistence and Decay

In this article, the author did the research about the formation, persistence and decay of trends on Twitter. Firstly, the author introduced development of social media and the previous research about the popular topics in social media. Then, the author introduced the prior work on analyzing connections on Twitter. Thirdly, the author used the Twitter Search API to gain the data of trends of the study. Furthermore, the author used a stochastic model to explain the growth of trending topics on Twitter. Finally, they found that retweets play an important role in determining trends of topics on Twitter and most of topic contents are derived from the traditional media. (XZ)

 Asur, S., B. A. Huberman, G. Szabo, and C. Wang. (2011). Trends in social media: persistence and decay. In 5th International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, 2011.

33. Summary 2: Marked differences in male/female responses on Facebook marketing

The author cited that though information on Facebook has influenced about one in five people to buy a product, a quarter of people have also been put off buying something after seeing a conversation or information on Facebook. The article quoted the Usurv’s founding that women are more likely to be impacted by friends’ comments about the products, but the number of men is less than that of women. Men’s purchase decisions are more likely dependent on the official channel or experts. Therefore, the author quoted some research’s opinion to indicate that a merchant should plan different strategies on Facebook in terms of gender difference about the responses to Facebook marketing. (XZ)

O’Reilly, L. (2012, Aug 7) Marked differences in male/female responses to Facebook marketing. Retrieved from http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/news/differentiate-facebook-ads-for-men-and-women/4003153.article

32. Summary: What are the pros and cons with using social media? In general as well as in the school area?

The author presented stages of developments in social media from the past to the present and how it helps our society for communication. The phenomenon of social media has both negative and positive results. He started with benefits of social media; he pointed out that social media creates opportunities help people to make relationships with each other. It also helps people interact with the Internet, particular persons who have a difficulty communicating with others. In contrast, he mentioned some disadvantages about social media. He said that social media does indeed have a positive effect on the world, but there will always be cons to break it down. Firstly, as mentioned before, social media distracts people, and sometimes a distraction is just what one might need. But it might sometimes create a distraction from what we are supposed to do in our workplace or in school (Saruman, 2013). In summary, he wants to give this idea that no one can argue with the fact that social media has a positive impact on the society. (FA)

Reference:

Saruman. (2013, Feb.) What are the pros and cons with using social media? In general as well as in the school area?. Study mode web site. http://www.studymode.com/essays/Social-Media-Essay-1399465.html

31. Summary: Social Media Users Are More Charitable Than You Might Think


The article shows the role social media has had in making fundraising easier than before, and that helps charitable organizations to publish their messages on social networks. But the author asks this question, “How powerful can these social networks be for social good campaigns, and are the users of these networks receptive?” He based the article on SurveyMonkey Audience which was conducted on more than 1,000 U.S. adults. He found 51% of users say there are “new social good initiatives on social media” and 46% of users say they hear about social good initiatives most often through social media — topping TV and word-of-mouth campaigns by more than three times (Lytle, 2014). Also, he found during that survey, nearly 64% Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google users donated $100 or more to charitable causes in the last year. Finally, he concluded his article by saying, “But LinkedIn is in no way looked at as a driver for social good causes. According to the SurveyMonkey results, less than 1% of all respondents believe LinkedIn is the most effective network for social good initiatives, and more than 92% have never found out about a charitable cause or been incentivized to donate to a cause through LinkedIn” (Lytle, 2014). (FA)

Reference:

Lytle, R. (2014). Social Media Users Are More Charitable Than You Might Think. Mashable website. http://mashable.com/2014/09/18/social-media-charity/

30. Summary 4

The article written by McAndrew and Jeong (2012) called “Who does what on Facebook? Age, sex, and relationship status as predictors of Facebook use” focused on a study of the use of Facebook by people. This study measured the relationship between age, sex and relationship status with different activities on Facebook as looking and reading other people's walls, posting photos and editing photos. The research team surveyed 284 males and 735 females (a total of 1026 people) of 54 nationalities and a range of age between 18 and 79.

The results of this work showed that females use Facebook more frequently than males. This use by females was resumed in reviewing other people's relationships status, using and posting profile photographs and looking at other people's photographs. According to this study, males are more interested in number of friends and educational and career accomplishments. Also males spent less time on Facebook when alone than when they are in a relationship, but this pattern doesn’t occur in female behavior on Facebook. Finally, the relationship between age and activity showed a negative correlation, when older people spent less time on Facebook than younger ones. (MCRB)

McAndrew, F. T., & Jeong, H. S. (2012). Who does what on Facebook? Age, sex, and relationship status as predictors of Facebook use. Computers in Human Behavior, 28(6), 2359-2365. URL http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563212002075

29. Summary 5

In the paper published by Richard Joiner et al. (2014), they looked at the differences between females and males in the terms of the language used on Facebook. This hypothesis was based on the premise that women use affiliative language more than men on Facebook statuses. This hypothesis was tested through a survey that the researchers made on 600 undergraduate students (388 females and 207 males). In this survey people had to choose between two different Facebook statuses; then, they has to answer if they would “like” the status; if they reply to the status update, and if they would send a private message to their friend who posted. The results showed that according to the hypothesis, females tended to post and publish status with a higher emotional levels than males in public. (MCRB)

Joiner, R., C. Stewart, et al. (2014). Publically different, privately the same: Gender differences and similarities in response to Facebook status updates. Computers in Human Behavior, 39(0): 165-169. URL http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0747563214003707

28. Article Summary #3

In the article "Texting, social media affecting teen sleeping patterns," Eric Moore claims that social media and texting at bedtime might be the reason behind getting less sleep for teenagers. According to him, insufficient sleep could cause long-term problems on students such as poor study habits, fatigue during the day and being less attentive in class. Some students state that social media is helping them to fall sleep more easily after a busy day; however, the author believes that the teenagers keep their phones with them; therefore, they tend to wake up and check their phones frequently during the night. In the article, the author introduces research conducted by Marc Eric Dyken, a professor of neurology in University of Iowa. According to that research; teenagers spend an average of 35 to 40 text messages while they are in their bed. In addition, college students have such a busy schedule and their use of social media shortens their sleeping hours. According to the article the easiest way to prevent sleeping disorder caused by the usage of social media is just turning off the phone before bed time. (SK)

Burbach, C. (n.d.). Ways Social Networking Ruins Friendship. About Relationships .

Moore, E. (2011, August 19). Texting, social media affecting teen sleeping patterns. The Daily Iowan . Retrieved (September 18, 2014) http://www.dailyiowan.com/2011/08/19/Metro/24431.html

27. Summary

Cherie Burbach discusses the effects of social networking on friendship in her article "Ways Social Networking Ruins Friendship." According to her, social media has changed the way people keep in touch in a negative way. She states that some people are giving details of their life (e.g. what they are up to, what they are eating and other updates) so frequently and some people might feel uncomfortable because of the information overload. Hearing the good or bad events that happened all the time can cause a person to stay away from their friend. Another result of getting too many updates is that when two friends meet each other, they might have nothing to talk about because they already know what is going on in each other’s life.

According to the author, sending game requests frequently can also ruin the friendship; it could cause the result of being deleted from your friend’s list. The social networking help us to keep in touch with our friends more frequently; however, keeping the balance between face to face friendship and online friendship is the key to having a successful friendship. (SK)

Burbach, C. (n.d.). Ways Social Networking Ruins Friendship. About Relationships .

Moore, E. (2011, August 19). Texting, social media affecting teen sleeping patterns. The Daily Iowan . Retrieved (September 18, 2014) http://friendship.about.com/od/Social_Networking/tp/Ways-Social-Networking-Ruins-Friendship.htm

26. Summary #4

This article discusses the results of a study on users’ intentions for sharing videos on YouTube. The authors use a technology acceptance model (TAM) as a theoretical basis for their discussion on effective variables in users’ acceptance levels. The main objectives of the study were, first to examine how TAM impacts users’ intentions in choosing YouTube to share videos; second, to examine factors affecting users’ intentions to share videos on YouTube from a social influence perspective; and third, to analyze gender differences in choosing YouTube to share videos. The results of a survey among 206 male and 135 female video sharers on YouTube show that perceived ease of use and a positive attitude are significant determinants of the intent to use YouTube to share videos. The results also reveal that all factors from the social influence perspective, including the perceived network externalities, interpersonal norms, and social norms, influence users’ intentions. The authors believe that this might indicate that the network effect, peer pressure, and positive judgments in mass media are all important factors to attract users to share videos. Regarding gender differences, the author points out that in contrast with male users, whose intention is strongly influenced by interpersonal norms, female users’ intention is strongly influenced by usefulness and social norms. (SV)Reference:

Yang, C., Hsu, Y., & Tan, S. (2010). Predicting the determinants of users’ intentions for using YouTube to share video: Moderating gender effects. Cyberpsychology,Behavior, and Social Networking, 13(2), 141-152.

25. Summary #5

In this article, the author, a professor of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, discusses how he has used YouTube as an important aspect of his pedagogical practice. Although the article is written in 2007, only two years after the emergence of YouTube, the author shows a number of statistics indicating that YouTube was the most popular vidcast website (the term he thinks fits best) at the time. Afterwards, he describes how he used YouTube in a cultural studies graduate course by making his students engage in a performance as a part of a pedagogical method that he calls mosh-pit. A mosh-pit (meaning a space close to the stage) was formed by a gathering in the classroom and having a number of technological resources around. The author then clarifies that the main purpose was to illuminate the meaning of the general concepts in course readings by a quick search on YouTube during class discussions. Ease of access to videos (as educational resources) as well as time-shifting (viewable at any time) and space-shifting (viewable at different settings) capabilities are the most highlighted features of YouTube in this article that provide an effective tool for university teaching. (SV)

Reference:

Trier, J. (2007). "Cool" engagements with YouTube: Part 1. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 50(5), 408-412.

24. A Scientific Explanation for Why We ‘Fav’ on Twitter

According to this article, a study, which was done in Germany and the U.K., shows that there are reasons people ‘favorite’ a tweet instead of ‘retreewing’. The ‘favorite’ button is similar to ‘like’ button in Facebook; it shows that you read something but it is not so interesting that you want to share it with your friends.

The study shows that one of the reasons to click the ‘favorite’ button is to show their reaction which means they like what they read. Also, the study claims that some people ‘favorite’ the tweet just because they like the person who writes it.

According to the study; some people ‘favorite’ the tweet which mentions their name on it. Also some users ‘favorite’ the tweet as a bookmark, so that they can find it easily in the future. However, the study shows that some people click the ‘favorite’ button accidently, because it is so small on a mobile.

There are other reasons to fav a tweet which are ‘flirt-faving and hate-faving’. The author of the study did not find hate-faving. "Our results are purely based on the statements of our respondents. We let them answer what based on their perceptions of goals and behaviors and analysed the data that came in. In none of these statements 'hate-favoriting' or some kind of aggressive gesture played a role," the researcher is quoted as saying. The author thinks they may need a follow-up study to find out about ‘hate-favoriting’. (KNA)

References

Knibbs, K. (2014, May 14). A scientific explanation for why we fav on Twitter. The Daily Dot. Retrieved from http://www.dailydot.com/technology/twitter-fav-science/

23. Summary: You Can Soon Access Apps on Facebook without Handing Over Any Personal Information

Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will let the people use the applications without any personal information. Normally, when a user uses an application which is connected with Facebook, they are required to log in to their Facebook account. However, this system will be changed. In the future, users will be able to control which information they want to share when they use the applications.

Valinsky quoted Zuckerberg as saying, "We know some people are scared of pressing this blue button [for login]." The author thinks some users do not trust the applications which are connected by Facebook, such as Farmville, so they do not want to give their account information. Soon, Facebook will change the system. Users will not have to log in to the applications. (KNA)

References

Valinsky, J. (2013, April 30). You can soon access apps on Facebook without handing over any personal information. The Week. Retrieved from http://theweek.com/speedreads/index/26080/speedreads-you-can-soon-access-apps-on-facebook-without-handing-over-any-personal-informatio

Sunday, September 21, 2014

Summaries, 2nd assignment


22. Summary 2.
                  There is a lot of information about social network users. In his article, Thiago Guimaraes (2014) shows new data about Facebook as the top of the social network sites. This article focuses on the importance of this statistics in the marketing field. He uses the new report from BI Intelligence to show the importance of demography in this social media.
                  Despite the growth of other social media, Facebook still has the highest number of subscriptions. Also, in North America more than 84% of the web users have an account on Facebook. In terms of gender, females are still using significantly more of this social media than males.
                  One of the most remarkable facts is that while other social media as Instagram and Twitter have more young people, the top users of Facebook are people in their late 20s early 30s. Finally, around 68% of the people with a college or university degree are registered on this social network. (MCRB)

Guimaraes, T. (2014, September 12) 7 new statistics about Facebook users that reveal why it’s such a powerful marketing platform. Business Insider. Retrieved: September 12, 2014. URL. http://www.businessinsider.com/a-primer-on-facebook-user-statistics-2014-9

21. Article Summary #2

Adapted from:
Terantino, J. M. (2011). Emerging technologies: Youtube for foreign languages. Language Learning & Technology, 15(1), 10-16.

                  The main objective of this article was to discuss how opportunities, developed by YouTube, can be integrated into foreign language teaching and learning. The author, Joseph M. Terantino, begins with a brief history of this media and various purposes of using it. Before discussing the educational benefits of YouTube, the author depicts the unique characteristics of digital natives, who were first defined by Prensky (2001). He continues by describing how several features of YouTube can be applied to meet the specific educational needs of this generation (digital natives) especially for learning foreign languages. Providing opportunities for creating linguistic and cultural content, student-created videos, and collaboration among multiple students is identified as an important capability of YouTube to serve foreign language learners and teachers. However, ESL students are warned about privacy and safety in YouTube. Finally, the article concludes that integrating YouTube videos, as educational tools, into foreign language classrooms has positive results. (SV)

References
Prensky, M. (2001). Digital natives, digital immigrants. On the Horizon, 9(5), 1-6.

20. Summary

                  The article talks about a new kind of information technologies; these are called a social media. The author criticized some researchers who often depend on social network analysis (SNA) when they try to understand this phenomenon. He illustrated the differences among traditional offline social networks and online social media networks. According to the article, there are "several key differences between traditional offline social networks and online social media networks by juxtaposing an established typology of social network research with a well-regarded definition of social media platforms that articulates four key features."  The outcomes of the article are about four points that have impact on social media. These points determine a series of theoretical research questions for SNA in social media. Finally, he concluded that it was important "for researchers to investigate the theoretical implications introduced by social media and lay the groundwork for a robust social media agenda potentially spanning multiple disciplines."  (FA)

Reference:
Al-Deen, H. S. & Hendricks, J. A. (2012). Social media : usage and impact. Lanham, Md. : Lexington Books, c2012.

19. Summary#1: College students’ social networking experiences on Facebook

                  Facebook is playing a leading role in college students’ social network activities (Tiffany et al., 2009). Few studies have been done to explore the total time they spend on Facebook, the reason they use Facebook, or how they use Facebook. In this article, 92 undergraduate students (60 females and 32 males) at a private university from different departments took a survey about Facebook use and a diary-like measure to record their activities on Facebook for one week. It showed that most friends in their Facebook accounts had already had a pre-established relationship with them. Females have more friends on their accounts than males. College students spend approximately half an hour on Facebook every day. More time is spent reading contents posted by their friends than creating their own contents. Such contents display people’s identities, such as romantic relationships, religion, and work. Thus, Facebook is used not only for communicating with friends but also for establishing personal identities. (YL)

Pempek, T. A., Yermolayeva, Y. A., & Calvert, S. L. (2009). College students' social networking experiences on Facebook. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30(3), 227-238.

18. 5 Things Politicians Should not Do on Social Media

Social media gives the politicians a chance to have an interaction with voters. "But with great social media power comes great social media responsibility" (Rollins, 2013). According to the author people should be careful with what they like on Facebook, Twitter etc. She thinks that politicians must change their habits with respect to what they liked before; for example, Charles Minor, Assemblyman of Jersey City, who liked inappropriate pages on Facebook. Also the author warns politicians to not to send pictures of their body part to anybody or they need to take the risk of losing their job, for example, Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York lost his job.
The author thinks that politicians should not use social media for their personal life, like texting with a secret daughter, as Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee did. Samantha Rollins says that politicians had better not write everything they did. For example, former Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown wrote ‘Bqhatevwr’ instead of ‘Whatever’ while he was drunk.
There is a certain thing about social media; even though it was deleted, people never forget what you posted. (KNA)

References
Rollins, S. (2013, February 19) 5 Things Politicians Should not Do on Social Media. theweek.com. Retrieved from theweek.com/article/index/240298/5-things-politicians-shouldnt-do-on-social-media

17. Summary

                  Kylie Burchat in her article "Social media: Changing communication forever" claims that the usage of social media might cause negative effects on communications.  According to her, using social media is a good way to keep connected with family and friends who are living abroad; however, its long term effects on the young generation could be damaging. In old times, young generations used to gain experiences about how to build relationships at their neighborhood or school; nowadays people are doing that online. It may cause people to become more and more introverted in real life and young adults can have problems at job interviews. Another effect of social media on communication is that people have started to use short forms of words instead of using complete sentences. People have started to share much more personal information and they have started to communicate frequently and shortly. The applications on smart phones are causing people to use social networks more frequently and it is supporting people's addiction. Burchart states that face to face communications are disappearing thanks to the online features of the social media. (SK)

Burchart, K. (2013, March 13). Social media: changing communication forever. The Argus .

16. Summary 2# nonacademic paper title: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube Grapple With Islamic State Censorship

Risen (2014) wrote an article to discuss the fight of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube against terrorist groups. In this article, it was reported that the White House had required social media sites to remove texts and videos about terrorism to prevent terrorist groups from hiring new members and Twitter, Facebook and YouTube had promised to support it. However, it was a big challenge for these social network sites to absolutely stop the flows of information about terrorism. This was because: (1) some news sites like New York Post did not ban this type of information; (2) it was hard to identify a reasonable line between what is and what is not regarded as hate speech. Additionally, because of political reasons, a few governments like the Indian government deleted posts from social media sites according to 2013 Freedom on the Net report.  (FL)

Reference:
Risen, T. (Sept. 5, 2014). Twitter, Facebook, YouTube Grapple With Islamic State Censorship. Available from: http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/09/05/twitter-facebook-youtube-navigate-islamic-state-censorship [Accessed date Sept. 11, 2014]

Academic Summaries

15. Summary 3
                  It is well known that the use of social media can affect relationships with both good and bad consequences. In certain ages these effects can be more evident as we can see in teenagers and young adults. In the study made by Masin and Foubert (2013), they surveyed 200 students in the Midwestern United States. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of the use of social media such as Facebook on the maturity of their relationships. Also they evaluated whether there was any effect on the relationship between genders.
                  In general, this study found that when the use of Facebook increases, there is a decrease in the maturity of interpersonal relationships. Also, when you see the peer relationships, there is a strong influence of the use of Facebook on the health of a relationship. (MCRB)

Masin, R. and Foubert, J.D. (2013) Effect of gender and Facebook use on the development of mature interpersonal relationships. Journal of Student Affairs, Vol. XXIII 51-59. URL. http://www.sahe.colostate.edu/Data/Sites/1/journal-of-student-affairs/2014-journal-of-student-affairs.pdf#page=51

14. Article Summary #3

This article discusses the results of a one-year ethnographic study on YouTube participants to examine how they use YouTube’s video sharing and commenting features to identify themselves as a part of a specific social group. The author begins with reviewing the concepts of "social networks" and "public/private" dichotomy in literature. She believes that deep understanding of how and why media like YouTube videos are viewed, enjoyed, and forwarded reveals many aspects of social networking and the way networkers distinguish between public and private. The results of data, collected through semi-structured interviews and observations, show that video-sharing practices help participants to both support their existing social circles and create new connections. The author highlights two degrees of publicness in video sharing, "publicly private" and "privately public," which emerged from the dataset. She found the former to be private contents shared by video-makers who reveal their identities easily, and the latter to be widely-accessible videos created by video-makers who do not want their identity disclosed. Based on the findings, these two categories are the special types of behavior in YouTube participants, which are neither strictly public nor strictly private. (SV)

References
Lange, P. G. (2007). Publicly private and privately public: Social networking on YouTube. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 361–380.

13. Summary of A study of the impact of social media on consumers.

                  The study shows about social media and their role in the improvement of e-commerce into social commerce. The author said the social media have presented new opportunities to consumers to use them on the internet. The article illustrates some benefits for traders and consumers to shopping on the internet. This study uses a SEM-PLS model to investigate how the social media developed the e-commerce.  The results of study appear to show that consumers trust buying on the internet. At the end of the article, the author discusses the results, along with implications, limitations and recommended future research directions. (FA)

Reference:
Hajli, M. N. (2014). A study of the impact of social media on consumers.  International Journal of Market Research 56(3). Birkbeck, University o f London. pp. 387-404.

12. Summary#2 Findings on Facebook in higher education: a comparison of college faculty and student uses and perceptions of social networking sites

                   Facebook, as a kind of modern social media, is widely used in colleges for educational communications and collaborations between students and faculty (Roblyer, et al., 2010). In this article, a survey is taken in a mid-sized university to compare the use of Facebook between faculty and students. The results show students use Facebook more than faculty. Faculty use Facebook to interact mostly with their friends and family members. Traditional communication tools, such as email, are widely used for faculty to communicate with their students.  (YL)

Roblyer, M. D., McDaniel, M., Webb, M., Herman, J., & Witty, J. V. (2010). Findings on Facebook in higher education: A comparison of college faculty and student uses and perceptions of social networking sites. The Internet and Higher Education, 13(3), 134-140.

11.  Links Between Politicians and Journalists

                  The article shows the Twitter network between 150 Dutch politicians and journalists. During the 2010 general election in The Netherlands, the journalists used this hashtag ‘rtldebat’ to ask voters about their opinion about political issues. Even though none of politicians answered any ‘tweets’, responses were more than they expected.
                  The study showed unexpected information. "The high volume of tweets sent by more traditional parties, like Christian Democrats, Conservatives, and Conservative Christian Democrats could also be explained by their central role in the current government coalition" (Verweij, 2012), because post-modern parties were known for using social media effectively.
                  The research states that, since the network makes politicians and journalists dependent on each other, their network is close but not as much as it is supposed to be.
                  The author said the results from this research are limited, but this is the first step to do a deeper research. (KNA)

References:
Verweij, P. (2012, March 27).  Twitter Links Between Politicians and Journalists. Retrieved from  www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17512786.2012.667272#tabModule

10. Summary #2

                  In the article "Why Americans use social media," Aaron Smith explains the results of the survey that was conducted of 2,277 adults between April 26- May 22, 2011. According to their survey, 66% of the adults are using social media such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn.  2/3 of the social media users are using these social media technologies in order to stay connected with family members and friends. Other reasons why they use social media are: Connecting with other people about a shared hobby or interest (14%), making new friends (9%), following public figures (5%) and finding a romantic partner (3%).
                  According to the survey, staying connected with family members is a common reason to use social media in all age groups; however, women social media users tend to use social media more to stay connected with family members than men users. (72% vs. 55%) In addition, the social media users who are under the age of 50 use social media to stay connected with their friends.
                  Another result that they gained from the survey is that middle aged and older social media users prefer using social media to connect with other people about a shared hobby or interest. Following public figures is a more common reason among Twitter users, African Americans and Latinos. Using social media to find a romantic partner is not a major reason for people. Generally people who are single, divorced or separated are using social media for this purpose. (SK)

Smith, A. (2011, November 15). Why Americans use social media. Pew Research Internet Project.

9. Summary 1#: Academic paper title: ePluribus: Ethnicity on Social Networks

                  In this paper, Chang et al. (2010) presented a Bayesian approach to estimate the ethnicities of population in terms of people's names and the statistics for census names. This approach has been demonstrated to be better than natural alternatives to predict the ethnicities of individuals and an overall population. After applying this approach to Facebook users, it was found that the diversity of Facebook users had grown as time went on, resulting in a great similarity to that of the real world population. Moreover, it was pointed out that population groups in different ethnicities have various profiles in demographics, religions, and customs of using site features. (FL)

Reference:
Chang, J. et al. (2010). ePluribus : Ethnicity on social networks. In Proceedings of the Fourth International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media (Washington, DC, May 23-26, 2010). Available from: http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM10/paper/viewFile/1534/1828 (Accessed date: Sept. 11, 2014).

Possible hypotheses / research questions

1. What are graduate students' purposes for using YouTube?
2. How do graduate students feel about the impact of using YouTube on their academic performance? (SV)
3. Is there a significant difference between male and female graduate students in terms of using YouTube and active engagement? (SV)
4. Is there a significant difference between international and domestic graduate students in using YouTube? (SV)
5. Most Texas Tech students will admit that they check their social media accounts at bedtime. (SK)
6. Texas Tech students believe that checking social media at bedtime will not cause a sleeping disorder. (SK)
7. Female students will admit to checking their social media at bedtime more than male students. (SK)
8. Texas Tech students will state that they do not believe social media affects their success in a negative way. (SK)
9. Texas Tech students will admit that social media interrupt them while they are studying. (SK)
10. Most of the Texas Tech students have participated in the ice bucket challenge and donated to the ALS Foundation. (SK)
11. Texas Tech students will admit that social media have become very important in their lives. (FA)

12. Texas Tech students will identify negative effects of social media. (FA)
13. There will be no difference between men and women about using social media applications. (FA)
14. We would like to know what percent of Texas Tech students support or go against the "real name" policy on social media sites. (FL)
15. We would like to know what percent of Texas Tech students use their real names on all their social media sites. (FL)
16. We would like to know which social media sites Texas Tech students are using the most. (KNA)
17. We would like to know the reasons Texas Tech students use social media sites. (KNA)
18. We thought it would be likely that women expressed their emotions more on social media. (KNA)
19. We were curious about how many Texas Tech students connected to public figures on social media. (KNA)
20. We want to know how Texas Tech students feel about the influence of social media on friendships. (KNA)
------
others that we have considered:
 (1)   People who identify as white and Asian tweet more than those who identify as African American and Hispanic.
(2)   The uses of social media differ between graduate and undergraduate students.
(3)   People will report that picture publication is more common in females than in males.
(4)   People will report that sharing feelings in social media is more common in females than in males.
(5)   Females will say they post more photos on Facebook more than males.
(6)  Students will report that instant and simple mobile communication tools are more widely used than Facebook and email among college students.
(7) People will say that they obtain information from social media, even when the accuracy of the information from the social media remains to be proved.
(8) If a merchant puts more expert’s suggestion in advertisements, this may influence men’s purchase decision to a large degree.
(9) People will report many negative effects of social media.
(10) People will report that social media are very important to them.
(11) Students will admit checking their social media while driving.
(12) Females will admit checking their social media while driving more than males
(13) Male students use Twitter more than females, especially on game day
(14) Females check their social media at bedtime more than males.
(15) Males will claim to have more Facebook friends than females.
(16) We are curious about differences in profile style (Facebook), time spent on Facebook, and activities (i.e. posting pictures, expressing feelings, sharing links)



*Note: We will work on these and change them, as time goes by. Keep in mind that we can measure only what people feel or say. You may use these or others that you develop yourself. Our purpose is to derive them from the readings so that it is clear that we have a good reason to believe things will turn out the way they do. If we really have no idea, it's better to frame it as a research question!

Monday, September 15, 2014

Summaries, 1st Assignment



8. Article Summary

In her post 'How YouTube is Impacting Current and Future College Students', Josie Ahlquist, a student affairs educator at California Lutheran University, highlights the strong influence of YouTube on viewers, especially college students. She believes that, as the third most visited website in the world (Cayari, 2011), YouTube is one of the most important forms of social media that affects teens’ behavior and communication skills. The author argues that this new channel for interacting with the youth places 'YouTubers' or 'YouTube Stars' in a special role where they can even impact the way that teenagers establish and explore their own identity. They can also teach educators about many things including online community building behavior, using YouTube content in classrooms, and students’ technology trends, interests, and struggles. Despite these significant effects of YouTube and YouTubers, research in this area, particularly from an educational perspective, has not been enough. That is the reason why the author intends to facilitate an educational session in an upcoming conference to communicate with well-known YouTubers and hear about their experiences with young people on YouTube. She ends her post by listing some of the outcomes from studies on YouTube that she is planning to mention in the educational session. One of the interesting findings is that 'share' is the main feature of this digital platform, which results in enhancement of social circles and interactions among teens (Haridakis & Hanson, 2009).  (S.V.)

References

Ahlquist, J. (2013, October 29). How YouTube is Impacting Current and Future College Students [Blog]. Retrieved from http://josieahlquist.com/2013/10/29/youtubecollege/
Cayari, C. (2011). The YouTube effect: How youtube has provided new ways to consume, create, and share music. International Journal of Education & The Arts, 12(6), 1-28.
Haridakis, P., & Hanson, G. (2009). Social interaction and co-viewing with YouTube: blending mass communication reception and social connection. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53(2), 317-335. 

7. Article Summary

                  In the article "Facebook losing its edge among college-aged adults," John McDermott states that the number of "young adult" (college student) users of Facebook is decreasing over time. According to the article, even though Facebook is still the most popular social media tool among college students, the percentage usage of Facebook decreased three percent (from 91.5% to 88.6%) between February 2013 and November 2013. On the other hand, some other social platforms increased their usage among the college students in the same time period: Instagram increased the percentage of usage by 7.5% (from 44%to 51.5%) among college students, because college students feel that it is easier to express themselves by using pictures. Twitter usage increased 3.6% (from 40.1% to 43.7%) because people can make short comments about games, shows etc. The usage of Tumblr increased 4.5% (from 31% to 35.5%). Snapchat and Vine have the greatest amount of usage increase rates. The usage of Snapchat increased 22.7%. (from 3.2% to 25.9%). The reason behind that increase is that college students feel that they have more privacy while using Snapchat. Finally, the usage of Vine increased 25% (from 0% to 25%). College students prefer Vine due to the fact that its 6 second video making time is easy to use and it is easier to be famous by using Vine. (S.K.)

McDermott, J. (2014, January 21). Facebook losing its edge among college-aged adults. Digiday.

6. Summary: Do college student spend too much time on Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites?

The author raises the question of whether college students who spend less time on Facebook or other social networking sites will get better grades. The University of New Hampshire did research about the social networking usage and grades for college students. They found that there is no apparent relationship between the time of social media usage and the students’ grades, because most of the heavy social media using students can get better grades. In addition, the research found Facebook and YouTube are most popular among the social media among college students. Furthermore, the research shows that there is an increasing trend for using social media among the surveyed students. Moreover, they found most students use social media for social or entertainment reasons, not for the academic reasons. (X.Z.)

Reference:

Bart, M. (2009, Dec. 30). Do college student spend too much time on Facebook, YouTube and other social networking sites? Faculty Focus.  www.facultyfocus.com/articles/edtech-news-and-trend/
5. Summary (Why do we hate Facebook Hashtags?)
First of all, this author is talking about the relationship between users and Facebook. He said “Facebook is a repository of someone’s life, where Twitter is like a thought-stream, at least in terms of usage.” Also, he compares between Facebook and other social media such as Twitter and Instagram. He assumes that “Posts with hashtags actually have less Viral Reach, on average, than posts without hashtags.” In addition, the user has a limit of letters in Twitter and Instagram, but in Facebook he can write a more letters than in them. Also, he is talking about privacy in social media; many people use nicknames in social media and they hide their real characters. Finally, he said that Facebook users are unable to explore a certain topic like they would on the other, more open social networks. (F.A.)

Reference: 

McHugh, M. (2013, Sep. 3). Why do we hate Facebook Hashtags. Digital Trends. http://www.digitaltrends.com/social-media/why-do-we-hate-facebook-hashtags/#!bNSzV7.

4. The summary of “Facebook losing its edge among college-aged adults” 

John McDermott (2014) wrote an article to argue that Facebook was losing its edge among college-aged adults. In this article, he thought Facebook wasn’t cool anymore by quoting the viewpoint from President Obama. He also pointed out that Facebook remained the most widely used social network for college-aged adults while its attractiveness decreased by citing a survey about social media. In this survey, Facebook’s penetration among college-aged adults decreased from Feb. 2013 to Nov. 2013 while its opponents, like Instagram, Twitter, Tumblr, Snapchat and Vine increased their traction with college-aged adults at this time. (FL)

Reference

McDermott, J. (2014). Facebook losing its edge among college-aged adults. Digiday. http://digiday.com/platforms/social-platforms-college-kids-now-prefer/ [accessed date: Sep 4, 2014]

3. Summary

In Mary Bart's article, she explores the question of whether there is a relationship between spending time on social networks and the performance of college students. This article is based in a study made by the University of New Hampshire. The study was made with a survey of 1,127 UNH students. The information collected in the survey was the time spent in social networks and the grades of each student. The research team did not find any correlation between time spent in social media and grades of the students.

Despite this, one of the most important findings was that around 96% of the students use Facebook. This means that this is the most successful social network among college students. Also they found a growth in social networking use in students through time. Finally the most important uses of social networks are social and entertainment reasons (more than 79% of surveyed students). (M.C.R.B.)

Reference

Bart, M. (2010, December 30). Do College Students Spend Too Much Time on Facebook, YouTube and Other Social Networking Sites? EdTech News and Trends.

2. Summary: The Evolution of Social Media Use among College Students

This article mainly talks about the evolution of social media use among college students. Since mobile devices are becoming popular for young people, instant and simple mobile communication tools, such as Instagram, Snapchat, Twitter, and WhatsApp, are more widely used than Facebook and email. Statistically, college students spend 3.6 hours per day on average playing with their smartphones (Kalkbrenner and McCampbell, 2011). However, adults in college are still used to reading and sending emails. Thus, administrators in college should have at least one mobile social media in their smartphones in order to connect with students instantly. (Y.L.)

Reference

Kalkbrenner, J., & McCampbell, A. (2011). The advent of smartphones: a study on the effect of handheld electronics on personal and professional productivity. Journal of Applied Global Research, 4(8).

1. Summary: Study Finds 77% of College Students Use Snapchat Daily
   
In this article “Study Finds 77% of College Students Use Snapchat Daily,” author Kurt Wagner explains a study which is about using Snapchat on a daily basis. The study, in which more than 1600 college student participated, states that most pictures are taken as a ‘selfie’. The author thinks that the information that people use Snapchat on Friday and Saturday is not that surprising. The study shows that almost 50% of students would not ignore a snap from a brand that they have never heard about. Also, “Close to 70% of students said they would even add a brand as a friend,” according to Kurt Wagner. Besides, according to ‘Sumpto’ which saves the data from Snapchat, some brands send gifts to college students so that they post about the brand and the brand could reach more people.
 
The article provides that there are different ways of using Snapchat. “The most popular Snapchat use case was ‘creativity’ (37%), followied by ‘keeping in touch’ (27%) and 'easier than texting’ (23%) (Wagner, 2014). Also the study shows that even though most people do not approve, ‘sexting’ and ‘sending inappropriate messages’ are the some of functions of using Snapchat. (KNA)

References  

Wagner, K. (2014, Feb 24). Study Finds 77% of College Students Use Snapchat Daily. Mashable. Retrieved from http://mashable.com/2014/02/24/snapchat-study-college-students/