1. Incidental Information Seeking
on Facebook: Social Capital
and Information Behavior
Cliff Lampe
University of Michigan - School of Information
November 4, 2011
[Supported by the National Science Foundation #0916019]

3. “May you live in exciting times...”

8. What are the outcomes of
Facebook use?

9. Social Capital
Facebook helps people maintain the relationships
that lead to social capital.

10. Social Capital
Social capital describes the ability of individuals or
groups to access resources from their social network
“investment in social relations with expected returns in
the marketplace” (Lin, 2001)
“connections among individuals - social networks and
the norms of reciprocity and trustworthiness that arise
from them” (Putnam, 2000)
A benefit from position in a network that can be
converted into other forms of capital (Resnick, 2001)

11. Social Capital
Bridging and bonding
(Putnam 2000)
Online vs. offline
(Williams 2006)
More likely a
continuum than a
binary

12. Bridging Social Capital
Flickr: Arlington County

13. Bridging social capital
describes the informational
benefits typically associated
with “weak
ties” (Granovetter, 1982),
loose connections who may
provide useful, non-
redundant information or
diverse worldviews
Bridging ties (across two
networks) facilitate
information diffusion (Burt,
‘92)
Flickr: Jeslee Cuizon

14. Bonding Social Capital
Flickr: HarlanH

15. Bonding social capital
Emotional support
“Big” resources
Money
Moving
Rides to the airport

16. Connect on
Facebook

17. Connect on
Facebook
Engage in
interaction

18. Connect on
Facebook
Engage in
interaction
Build
Social Capital

19. Connect on
Facebook
Engage in
interaction
Build
Convert Social Capital
Social capital

20. Connect on Facebook
People mostly connect to those they
know offline
(Lampe et al., 2006; Lampe et al., 2008)
The tools of Facebook reduce transaction
costs of maintaining a large network
(Lampe et al., 2007)

21. Engage in Interaction
“Actual” Friends more important than total Friends
(Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2011)
Facebook users have large networks but only interact with few of
their Friends
(Facebook Data Team, 2009; Golder et al., 2007)
Directed communication with individual Friends lead to social
capital gains, but not passive consumption or broadcasting
(Burke, Kraut, & Marlow, 2011)
News Feed algorithm (which is unknown) determines visibility of
Friends’ content

22. Build Social Capital
Facebook use is associated with bridging and bonding
social capital
(Ellison et al., 2007; Steinfield et al., 2008, Valanzuela, 2009; Burke et al., 2010;
Burke et al., 2011; Ellison et al., 2011)

23. Build Social Capital
Facebook’s social & technical affordances:
Enable users to broadcast and respond to requests
for information, advice, and recommendations
Support maintenance of larger network of weak (and
strong) ties
Facilitate socially relevant interactions with latent ties
(ties that are technically possible but not yet socially
activated – Haythornthwaite, 2005)

24. Convert social capital
Organize “quotidian” tasks
(Wohn et al., 2011)
Classroom organizing
(Lampe et al., 2011)
Political expression
(Vitak et al., 2011)
Knowledge management
(Steinfield et al., 2009)

25. Flickr: Dimitri N.
Requests for resources
Social capital in action

26. To what extent are people seeking
resources through Facebook?

30. Social Q&A
Many questions on Twitter are rhetorical
(Paul et al., 2011)
People in an organization posted requests for
recommendations, opinions, favors, and factual
knowledge.
(Morris et al., 2010)
“Culture” affect the types of things people look for.
(Yang et al., 2011)

31. Study
Data collected Fall, 2010 and Spring, 2011
Sample of non-academic MSU staff
N=666 (including 134 [22%] non-Facebook users)
66% female
Average 45 years old
44% college graduates, 32% post-graduate training
Multi-method approach

32. Data collection
Survey Instrument [today’s talk]
n=614, 29% RR
Facebook network data via Facebook app, Hogan’s
NameGenWeb (N=238)
“Favor” request to activate network potential on
Facebook
Capture example of question-asking from participant’s
News Feed with short survey about responders

33. Dependent Variables
Likelihood to use Facebook for
Information Seeking
Perceived value of Facebook as a
source of information

34. Independent variables
Demographics
FB Appropriateness
FB minutes per day
FB Total Friends AND Actual Friends
Facebook Bridging Social Capital
Signals of Relational Investment

35. Total vs. Actual Friends
“Approximately how many TOTAL Facebook friends do
you have at [university] or elsewhere?”
“Approximately how many of your TOTAL Facebook
friends do you consider actual friends?”
From 2008 undergraduate dataset:
Median total Friends: 300; “actual” friends: 75 (25%)
2010-2011 adult dataset:
Median total Friends: 130; “actual” friends: 40 (~30%)

36. Signals of Relational
Investment (SRI)
Behaviors such as explicitly responding to Friends’ questions
are productive because they:
Create an expectation about reciprocal behavior: “expected
returns in the marketplace” (Lin, 2001)
Perform a social grooming function (Dunbar, 1996; Donath,
2007; Tufekci, 2008) and signal attention
Potentially train the News Feed
Comments on Friends’ updates and Wall posts are seen by
the Friends’ network, not your own (until recent UI change)

38. Relationship to info seeking

40. Older people were
less likely
More education =
less likely
More bridging social
capital = more likely
Complex relationship
Appropriateness - SRI

42. Low and high info seekers

43. Some conclusions from this
study
People didn’t see themselves that likely to do this
“Norms” and motivations to use the site mattered

44. Issues of Information
What is a question anyway?

46. Questions
What librarians have
always known about
questions
Not always accurate
Often embeds multiple
agendas
Not always framed as a
question
It is costly to search

47. What’s the difference
between a question and
other resource requests?

48. What are the characteristics
of the (user/question) that
make it appear on Facebook
as opposed to a search
engine?

49. Are there ways to make the
site more useful for info
seekers?

50. Next steps
Continue analyzing data from Spring study
Working with Facebook to learn:
Prevalence of resource requests
Satisfaction with responses
User variables that affect request behaviors
What about “passive information collection” vs. info
seeking?

52. Thanks!
Cliff Lampe
cacl@umich.edu
Twitter: @clifflampe
SlideShare: clifflampe
http://clifflampe.org