Paper reading #2: It's Complicated: how romantic partners use Facebook

Intro
Author Bios: 

Xuan (Sharon) Zhao - Xuan is a first year Ph.D student in the department of Communication at Cornell. In addition to her work with social networking research, she plans to work on interactive media designs guided by the study of how social interaction in video games and immersive virtual environments affects individual’s real-life experience. She is also a very talented artist.

Victoria Schwanda Sosik - Victoria is a third year PhD student in Information Science, minoring in Communication, at Cornell University. In addition to her work with social networking and its affect on relationships, she has explored how people use persuasive health technologies such as Wii Fit and how these technologies can better support people in attaining physical wellbeing. She has been a competitive figure skater for 14 years.

Dan Cosley - Dan (aka DanCo PhD) is an assistant professor in Cornell University's information science department. He is currently working on a project that helps you to remember good times by sending occasional e-mails to trigger memories. He said of its name, "The project I'm currently most excited about is code-named Pensieve until we get sued by J. K. Rowling."




Summary

This paper explored the many different affects that Facebook can have on a couple and their relationship. This included tracking use of particular features and the relational significance attached to those.  They found that particular facebook features, such as photos or wall posts, each had a different associated meanings.  Relationship statuses are a way to let the entire electronic world that you are "on" or "off" the market.  Participants in the conducted study had a tendency to either felt as though their relationship was stronger or less strong depending on the relationship status chosen by their partner on facebook.  Friending partner's friends was also viewed as an extremely significant step in a relationship. It was stated that the participants felt as though they were further committing to their partners when they added their friends as well, because they were creating other ties to that person.  Photos were viewed in almost the same was as a relationship status update. By posting photos, participants felt that their significant others were acknowledging and therefore improving the relationship.  Wall posts were generally not very widely used by the participants to express relationship related things, and if they did, it was in a subtle way. Wall posts were seen as too public to divulge intimate details. Strategies for managing the tensions related with facebook and relationships.

Related Work
Dwyer, C., Hiltz, S., Passerini, K. (2007) Trust and Privacy Concern Within Social Networking Sites: A Comparison of Facebook and MySpace
Joinson, A. (2008) Looking at, looking up or keeping up with people?: motives and use of facebook

Hewitt, A., Forte, A. (2006) Crossing Boundaries: Identity Management and Student/Faculty Relationships on the Facebook

Cha, M., Gummadi, K., Mislove, A., Viswanath, B. (2009) On the evolution of user interaction in Facebook

Mazer, J., Murphey, R. Simonds, C. (2007) I'll See You On “Facebook”: The Effects of Computer-Mediated Teacher Self-Disclosure on Student Motivation, Affective Learning, and Classroom Climate

Grasmuck, S., Martin, J., Zhao, S. (2008) Identity construction on Facebook: Digital empowerment in anchored relationships

Calvert, S., Pempek, T., Yermolayeva, Y. (2009) College students' social networking experiences on Facebook

Bugeja, M. (2006) Facing the Facebook

Arseaneault, J., Orr, E., Orr, R., Ross, C., Simmering, M. (2009) Personality and motivations associated with Facebook use

DiMicco, J., Millen, D. (2007) Identity management: multiple presentations of self in facebook

There are plenty of works related to Facebook, in general, but almost nothing related to romantic relationships specifically.

Evaluation

Evaluation simply involved asking participants to keep a 2 week journal of their feelings when making decisions about creating (or not creating) facebook content, and also the reasons behind these decisions. This is obviously both subjective and qualitative.

Discussion

I find this topic extremely intriguing since I use facebook every day. I most assuredly make the same decisions and have similar feelings to the participants involved, but I never particularly thought about it until reading this paper. I would have liked to have seen a bit more in depth and less emotion related research on the topic.