Ernest Calderon ENC1102 Rios Social Media and Human Behavior: Annotated Bibliography We live in a world in which the

internet has become a part of every day life, seamlessly integrated into the world around us. We have developed a strong presence online, making social interactions that get more deeply embedded into our internet activities. People who may have only a couple of friends in the physical world may have hundred, maybe thousands of friends in the virtual world. This has skewed the definition of friendship and altered whom we consider friends. When we are involved with followers and likes, how can we distinguish the weight of these interactions? Are we actually becoming lonelier while attempting to feel more connected with the world by sharing experiences on the social web? It's very possible. The way we behave online and the reasons and motivations behind it may hold the answer to this. The internet is the Wild West of the new millennium, and there is much ground to cover in terms of research and understanding these new ways of interacting. Social media is certainly changing the way we behave and relate to each other as a species. Thus, my research question: How do online behavioral expectations impact human interaction via social networking websites? 1. Pearson, Judy C., et al. "Interpersonal Communication." Human Communication. 5th ed. N.p.: McGraw Hill Education, 2013. N. pag. Print. Well into the twenty-first century, our society has become used to experiencing interpersonal communication and having interpersonal relationships with people via the Internet. Defining friendships and relationships was a lot easier before the days of Facebook and Twitter. It has become complicated now that there is such a focus on the number of friends and followers one has as opposed to the quality of a face-to-face conversation, or the sharing of details of our lives. We are constantly connecting to the Internet, and it is safe to say that most people spend a large portion of their time online on social media. Today our definitions have shifted, the text says. People may count dozens, or even hundreds, of others as their friends. These numbers can be as high as thousands, hundreds of thousands, and millions, depending on the individuals presence, activity, and popularity online. Just as the definition of friend has expended, so has the

definition of sexual partner, as the text points out. There may be a correlation between social media and the growing polarity of casual sexual relationships. Online sites have made new kinds of friendships possible, and there are frankly more questions than answers in terms of how we define interpersonal communication and interpersonal relationships. What I want to take away from this is analyze how these changing online behavioral expectations affect emotional connections among humans. This source effectively sets and directs the initial question, while providing additional issues to consider. It provides some statistics as to whom and how many people use social networking sites. I think it is important to find out why people choose to have online friends. 2. Lin, Kuan-Yu, and Hsi-Peng Lu. "Why people use social networking sites: An empirical study integrating network externalities and motivation theory."Computers in Human Behavior 27.3 (2011): 1152-1161. The source conducted an empirical study using an online questionnaire. Four-hundred and two participants were sampled, exploring factors affecting their use of social networking sites. Several hypotheses were tested taking into account numerous possible factors. It is one of the most thorough studies I have seen while researching the topic. The findings show that enjoyment is the most influential factor in peoples continued use of social networking cites, flowed by number of peers, and usefulness. Gender was also taken into account. The number of peers is an important factor affecting the continued intention to use social networking sites for women but not for men. Additionally, the number of members has no significant effect on enjoyment for men. Although this source is very thorough in terms of statistics, I may only require the surface ideas to gather information regarding motivations for social media usage. I would prefer to platform off these motivation theories to analyze the social internet as space. I will take into account Reynold's and LeFebvre's ideas regarding spatial metaphors. The source uses specific statistical calculations that will allow me to better pinpoint the factors of social media usage. It may provide clues towards reaching conclusions about the general analysis of human behavior regarding social media. By looking at my sources together

3. Pempek, Tiffany A., Yevdokiya A. Yermolayeva, and Sandra L. Calvert. "College students' social networking experiences on Facebook." Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 30.3 (2009): 227-238. This is a study not unlike the survey I will be conducting for my paper, but certainly more in-depth. The study had 92 undergraduate students complete a dairy-like measure each day for a week, reporting daily time use and responding to an activities checklist to assess their use of the popular social networking site, Facebook. The fact that the study focused solely on Facebook contributes to why it examined the issue more thoroughly. It will serve as a strong basis for answering many of the questions I have going into my research. The study found that the time spent daily on Facebook varied greatly among the participants. It is important to note that the study was conducted more than five years ago, and that the number of young adults with a smart-phone has increased exponentially in those years. When I conduct my survey, I will ask which devices are regularly used to access social media. As to why students use Facebook, the study found that the answer is primarily to communicate with friends and to establish a personal identity. The reasoning behind each is quite detailed, and I will be sure to incorporate the information into my research. Additionally, nearly a quarter of the participants said that Facebook is something to do when they are bored. Lastly, the study found how students are interacting on Facebook. It names online lurking, communicating on walls, and group membership as the top three ways of interacting. 4. Correa, Teresa, Amber Willard Hinsley, and Homero Gil De Zuniga. "Who interacts on the Web?: The intersection of users personality and social media use." Computers in Human Behavior 26.2 (2010): 247-253. The source looks to find the link between users personality traits and their use of social media. When the Internet was less popular, people went online seeking the anonymity it offered. Now, the opposite is happening, with users going online to socialize with people they do know and expanding their circle of friends. The source lists three hypotheses regarding personality as a predictor of Internet and social media use. First: People who are more extraverted will use social media more frequently. Second: People who are more emotionally stable will use social media less frequently. And third: People

who are more open to new experiences will use social media more frequently. The results were then calculated considering differences in gender and age. While extraverted men and women were both likely to be more frequent users of social media, only the men with greater degrees of emotional instability were more regular users. For younger users, they were found to be more likely to use social media if they were considered extraverted. As for older users, they were found to be more likely to use social media if they were open to new experiences. The findings of this sources research will allow me to further understand the motives behind social media use. It has inclined me to consider personality traits in my own research, and ask what sorts of impact loneliness, depression, and introversion have on social media use. 5. Kaplan, Andreas M., and Michael Haenlein. "Users of the world, unite! The challenges and opportunities of Social Media." Business horizons 53.1 (2010): 59-68. The source aims to define the term social media. It is a fairly new term, as it is a direct product of the internet, which has only reached mainstream status in the last twenty or so years. It begins by commenting on the early forms of social media. In the very early days of the Internet were talking the seventies and eighties there was Usenet, likely the first worldwide discussion system that allowed users to post public messages. Open Diary brought together online diary writers into one community. The term blog was derived here from the term weblog when one blogger jokingly transformed it into the sentence we blog. The source states that the formal definition requires drawing a line to two related concepts Web 2.0 and User Generated Content. It then goes into some specifics, stating that when classifying social media applications, it must be taken into account that it is an ever-changing medium. Thus, we must consider media research (social presence, media richness) and social processes (self-presentation, self-disclosure), the two key elements of Social Media. The degree at which each of the elements intersect if we consider social presence/media richness being low, medium, or high, and self-presentation/self-disclosure being either high or low we can better categorize types of social media. The source includes a table that visualizes this. My

objective in including this source is to better understand what defines social media in all its different forms before analyzing who uses it, why they use it, and what it all means.