Social Connectedness on Facebook: An Explorative Study on Status Message Usage

Proceedings of 16th Americas Conference on Information Systems, 2010

11 Pages Posted: 16 Jul 2010

See all articles by Felix Köbler

Felix Köbler

Technische Universität München (TUM) - Information Systems

Christoph Riedl

Northeastern University - D’Amore-McKim School of Business

Céline Vetter

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) - Institute for Medical Psychology

J. M. Leimeister

University of St. Gallen; University of Kassel - Information Systems

Helmut Krcmar

Technische Universität München (TUM)

Date Written: July 16, 2010

Abstract

With over 400 million active users Facebook is undeniably a large social phenomenon and one of the largest social networks on the Internet. Together with Facebook a variety of novel communication styles have developed, dramatically influencing social interaction. The underlying paper reports the results of a survey (N=109) analyzing Facebook’s micro-blogging function available through users’ status updates. Our results suggest that the use of status update messaging generates a feeling of connectedness between users. Furthermore, non-parametric analyses distinguishing between low and high connected groups have been performed and experimentally confirmed the existence of distinct user profiles as a function of the variable “feeling connected.” The analyses revealed that the more individuals use their status message function to actively reveal information about themselves, the more connected they feel. Connectedness seems the result of active information sharing modulated by the amount of information shared rather than by the type of information an individual is sharing.

Keywords: Facebook, Connectedness, Social Network, Twitter, Status Update Messages, Quantitative Study and Survey

Suggested Citation

Köbler, Felix and Riedl, Christoph and Vetter, Céline and Leimeister, Jan Marco and Krcmar, Helmut, Social Connectedness on Facebook: An Explorative Study on Status Message Usage (July 16, 2010). Proceedings of 16th Americas Conference on Information Systems, 2010, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1641178

Felix Köbler

Technische Universität München (TUM) - Information Systems ( email )

Boltzmannstr. 3
Garching b. Munich, 85748
Germany

Christoph Riedl (Contact Author)

Northeastern University - D’Amore-McKim School of Business ( email )

360 Huntington Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
United States

HOME PAGE: http://www.christophriedl.net

Céline Vetter

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) - Institute for Medical Psychology ( email )

Muechen, D-80336
Germany

Jan Marco Leimeister

University of St. Gallen ( email )

Varnbuelstr. 14
Saint Gallen, St. Gallen CH-9000
Switzerland

University of Kassel - Information Systems ( email )

Pfannkuchstraße 1
Kassel, 34121
Germany

Helmut Krcmar

Technische Universität München (TUM) ( email )

Arcisstrasse 21
Munich, DE 80333
Germany

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