Parents and Facebook

There were at least 14 books written in 2007-2008 about protecting children in regards to social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

In reviewing these books, Zheng Yan writes,

"public concern is enormous, the entire scientific community, including governmental and private funding agencies, theoretical and applied researchers, and journal editors and reviewers, appear to have fallen behind rather than lead the communities of parents, publishers, and policy makers in responding to the growing use of SNSs among adolescents and the accompanying concerns about their safety on these sites" (J. of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2008, 29, 473).

In the same journal Subrahmanyam and Greenfield (2008) write,

"For researchers who study young people's use of the Internet, one of the biggest challenges is the constantly changing virtual world. Online communication forms are in a state of flux, and many operate like a fad. By the time researchers become aware of a popular online application or site, identify the research issues, design a well thought-out study, and get IRB approval, the population of interest has moved on to the next new application" (p. 417).

As information and communication technologies continue to change the social environment we will increasingly be pressed to move more rapidly in understanding and adapting to these changes.

This Facebook thing-- Boundary Ambiguity

Ok, so now I have a Facebook entry. The first person who I told was my 18-year-old son who immediately closed his FaceBook entry so I couldn't see it. His comment was, "If old people like you are on this, I need to move on!"

So there my entry sat for a week or so and then someone asked me to be a friend. Hmmm.... I thought so how did they find me. I hadn't really told anyone and the truth is I didn't look for anyone I knew.... so this made me curious. Are there people I know out there. Yes, I found six people from my high school graduation class of about 800. I recognized one name.

So now others have begun to ask me to be friends. Mostly colleagues.... so here is my uncomfortable part. For most people Facebook is this mix of personal and professional stuff. In real life I keep alot of my personal and professional parts of life separate. So on Facebook it seems like this stuff begins to cross between personal and professional. This makes me uncomfortable and seems unfamiliar.

I mentioned this to students and they are not worried. They don't seem to think about boundaries in these ways. Perhaps they will later on, but perhaps not. What should and shouldn't be private?

Mass Interpersonal Persuasion

In a new paper, BJ Fogg writes,

"A new form of persuasion emerged in 2007: I call it 'mass interpersonal persuasion' (MIP). This phenomenon brings together the power of interpersonal persuasion with the reach of mass media. I believe this new way to change attitudes and behavior is the most significant advance in persuasion since radio was invented in the 1890s."

That's a provocative way to begin an article!

So what is this "mass interpersonal persuasion?"

Fogg writes that "mass interpersonal persuasion" is best exemplified by ability of users in Facebook to distribute applications. He describes six components that were bundled together to create this new process:

1. "Persuasive Experience: An experience that is created to change attitudes, behaviors, or both.
2. Automated Structure: Digital technology structures the persuasive experience.
3. Social Distribution: The persuasive experience is shared from one friend to another.
4. Rapid Cycle: The persuasive experience can be distributed quickly from one person to another.
5. Hugh Social Graph: The persuasive experience can potentially reach millions of people connected through social ties or structured interactions.
6. Measured impact: The effect of the persuasive experience is observable by users and creators" (p. 4).

The primary example described in the paper the use of Facebook as a platform to share "web applications" among people on Facebook. Fogg and his colleagues conducted a class of students to create applications for Facebook that would be designed using feedback from Facebook users. The results were that the students were able to develop widely used applications. He reports that at the end of the course, over 16 million people had used student's applications and at one point over 1 million people each day used an application the students created.

So what does Fogg make of this?

He writes that the persuasive experience and automation has been put together before. Research in his lab and reported in his book, Persuasive Technology, has demonstrated that people's attitudes and behaviors can be changed using computer-guided systems. The new aspect created by social networking technologies is that these "automated persuasive activities" could be easily exchanged among a large, networked group of people. The last element of "measured impact" provides feedback to users and creators about which "persuasive experiences" are working.

Here are the questions I find myself asking:

1. Can you change behavior or attitudes with these efforts for the long-term or is this mostly a short-term behavior change strategy?

2. What particular persuasive techniques or strategies work in social networks?

3. How does network size affect the creator of the persuasive strategy?

4. How does mass interpersonal persuasion work within various age groups?

There are many interesting questions and issues to consider in regards to the components of "mass interpersonal persuasion."