Social Penetration Theory and Facebook
1
Running Head: SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY AND FACEBOOK
Social Penetration Theory, Social Networking and Facebook
Annie McCarthy
Fairfield University
CO 400
May 2009
Prepare for your exams
Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points to download
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Guidelines and tips
Prepare for your exams
Study with the several resources on Docsity
Earn points to download
Earn points by helping other students or get them with a premium plan
Community
Ask the community
Ask the community for help and clear up your study doubts
University Rankings
Discover the best universities in your country according to Docsity users
Free resources
Our save-the-student-ebooks!
Download our free guides on studying techniques, anxiety management strategies, and thesis advice from Docsity tutors
Social Penetration Theory and the Impact of Facebook on Relationships and Self-Disclosure, Study notes of Social Theory
How Social Penetration Theory applies to Facebook, a popular social networking site. The author discusses how Facebook facilitates relationship formation and self-disclosure, as well as the ethical considerations and privacy concerns associated with using the platform. The document also touches upon the history and development of social networking sites, focusing on Facebook.
What you will learn
- What are the benefits of using Facebook for relationship formation?
- What ethical considerations come into play when using Facebook for self-disclosure?
- What privacy concerns arise when using Facebook for self-disclosure?
- How has Facebook impacted the way people communicate and maintain relationships?
- How does Social Penetration Theory apply to Facebook?
Typology: Study notes
2021/2022
1 / 26
This page cannot be seen from the preview
Don't miss anything!
Related documents
Partial preview of the text
Download Social Penetration Theory and the Impact of Facebook on Relationships and Self-Disclosure and more Study notes Social Theory in PDF only on Docsity!
Running Head: SOCIAL PENETRATION THEORY AND FACEBOOK
Social Penetration Theory, Social Networking and Facebook
Annie McCarthy Fairfield University CO 400 May 2009
Abstract
Social Penetration Theory can be related and evolved by using social networking sites (SNS), specifically facebook.com. This paper explores social networking as related to self-disclosure in social penetration theory. Also included is a brief history of social networking, and where it is going in the future, as new SNSs constantly form. Facebook.com is one of the most popular social networking sites. A Facebook user is constantly using social penetration theory by displaying self-disclosure. A Facebook user can set their privacy settings to determine their levels of self-disclosure. By using SNSs, and Facebook, users grow relationships by exhibiting behaviors that evolve social penetration theory.
Users form relationships with each other in social networking online groups. Heath and Bryant (2000) stated how relationships can be symmetrical which is influence balanced; or asymmetrical, where one party has more influence than the other and that networks are dynamic, and are in a constant state of emergence, growth, maintenance and decline. Relationships are caused by interactions and mutual understandings. Relationships are both social and personal, each side is constantly updating, thinking and communicating, until one discovers what the relationships means, or an affirmation occurs. The media, how we function, how we view the media and our culture and society contribute to people’s technology use, and how we form relationships in both the on and off-line worlds. One’s perception is not necessarily true of another’s in any given relationship. Relationships can be compared to games and relationships are evaluated in a process, reconsidered, and the thought process leads to thinking about the future of the relationship (Rychlak, 1984). Social networks and relationships can also be seen as a pattern of behavior. Facebook has become a cultural phenomenon. There’s even a website, Insidefacebook.com to help users, and there are countless applications, groups, fan pages, and quizzes that users participate with on Facebook. Facebook has surpassed other popular SNSs such as MySpace and LinkedIn (see Appendix A). Business professionals have adopted the use of Facebook at a rapid pace. For the business professional, Facebook is a fun, less formal alternative to LinkedIn. Conversation can be found through discussion threads within Facebook groups, with users engaging in self-disclosure. Finding groups that both match a user’s interests, and
which are consistently active, can be hit or miss depending on what topics the user is looking for. Another more recent SNS site, Twitter, does one thing and it does it well. It answers the question, “What are you doing?” It’s all about the conversation and there is always someone there to who will see your message. However the “Tweet” is only 140 characters. Twitter is great to use from a cell phone because of the minimal character length. Twitpic.com allows users to post pictures on Twitter. From the outside looking in, it’s often hard for users to understand the value that Twitter brings to the table, especially if Facebook is the more popular SNS. For users who use both Twitter and Facebook, there’s an application which allows users to connect with both SNSs by using TweetDeck (see Appendix B). Many users use Facebook as a method of primary communication, rather than using the phone, face-to-face or even email communication. Interpersonal communication now extends to the Internet. Who needs email when you have a Facebook wall? Besides reconnecting with friends and making new ones, users create events and join fan pages and groups. According to Facebook (2009)
Black (2004) explored how social-networking sites will continue to search for the most efficient way to make people more visible and more connected to people they know without exposing them to unwanted solicitations and information. The balance between sharing and protecting personal data is the key to their success. It’s human
they have over 200 million active users, and an average user has 120 friends on the site. (See Appendix C).
Social penetration can be compared to different types of relationships and to different aspects of relationships. These layers are a key aspect of the theory. Although self-disclosure is a behavioral component of the self-penetration process, it includes any behavior that is interpersonal—verbal, non-verbal, or environmental—that affects relationship development (Sprecher, Wenzel, & Harvey, 2008). Social penetration theory generates predictions about the pattern of relationships as they develop. As Sprecher, Wenzel, & Harvey (2008) described at each stage of relationship development there is a distinctive “wedge-shaped pattern” to disclosure associated with greater disclosure than with disclosure at less-intimate levels. It moves as self- disclosure becomes more intimate from superficial and privacy levels change. A wide range of topics is explored in a relationship, since self-disclosure grows as the relationship grows. Sidney Jourard argued that willingness to disclose to others increased understanding in relationships and built intimacy. Jourard (1971) defines self-disclosure as making ourselves "transparent" to others through our communication--i.e., when we tell others things about ourselves which help them to see our uniqueness as a human being. Jourard (1971) found that reciprocity of self-disclosure between individuals is based upon trust, and it is only when an individual sees another as trustworthy that the disclosure will undertake the risk of disclosing themselves to the receiver. Self-disclosure occurs on cognitive, emotional, and behavioral levels (Sprecher, Wenzel, & Harvey, 2008). It varies in content and depends upon how much one discloses to the recipient. It may be perceived as intended for one recipient, or intended for anyone. There is a difference between self-description vs. self-disclosure (Sprecher,
Wenzel, & Harvey, 2008). Self-description involves communication that levels "public layers" whereas self-disclosure involves communication that reveals more private, sensitive, and confidential information. Taylor and Altman (1987) theorized that self- disclosure is a component of communication in which individuals make themselves known to other people. Pearce & Sharp (1973) make an interesting distinction among three related terms: Self-disclosure, confession, and revelation. Self-disclosure is voluntarily communication of information about one's self to another. Confession is forced or coerced communication of information about one's self to another. Finally, revelation is unintentional or inadvertent communication of information about one's self to another.
Other Findings of Self Disclosure Research Self Disclosure increases with increased relational intimacy. Self-disclosure is a key component of relationship development because it fosters closeness (Derlega, Winstead, Wong, & Greenspan, 1987). Additionally, it plays a central role in the types of relationships that develop, and how satisfied each partner is within these relationships. Social penetration rests upon the premise that face-to-face relationship development proceeds from the superficial to intimate levels of exchange (Altman & Taylor, 1973). The theory of social penetration can be applied to computer mediated communication. The path to social penetration theory comes from sharing a wide range of topics and revealing the core of a person’s self concept, according to Taylor and Altman (1973). On the computer, people tend to share the same information they would in face to face interaction. This is especially true with Facebook users.
launched. Many argue that Classmates.com, founded in 1995, was the first popular social networking website and in many ways laid the foundation for future sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and LinkedIn. SNSs are defined by Boyd & Ellison (2007) as web-based services that allow individuals to “(1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system.” Participants in SNSs are not necessarily "networking" or looking to meet new people; instead, they are primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their extended social network (Boyd & Ellison, 2007). SNS have a high level of offline–online integration. Founded in 2004, Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. (Facebook, 2009). Facebook is founded on the premise of sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people's real-world social connections. Facebook is a SNS that originally restricted its membership to college students. Rosen (2007) explained that the name Facebook originates from “the small photo albums that colleges once gave to incoming freshmen and faculty to help them cope with meeting so many new people” (p. 17). In September 2006, Facebook became open to the public such that anyone with a valid e- mail address could access the site and create a Facebook profile (Mitrano, 2006). Although Facebook is now open to the public, in order to be a member of a particular university “network” an individual must have a valid email address as issued by the
institution to be a member of that network (Mitrano, 2006). A user can also be part of a geographic network, workplace network, or not choose to be part of a network. Facebook is a social networking website that resembles a virtual community where members subscribe to particular behavioral or cultural norms by participating in Facebook walls, pokes, notes, events, and quizzes. One of Facebook’s most popular features is the appearance of a friends’ list that is linked from the user’s profile page. Users can select other users to be friends with and this grouping of friends will appear in an alphabetized list on the linked page. Beyond profiles, friends, comments, and private messaging, SNSs vary greatly in their features and user base. Some have photo-sharing or video-sharing capabilities; others have built-in blogging and instant messaging technology. Even websites such as eHarmony.com and Match.com, introduced before Facebook, rarely reached the college or younger demographic because membership to those sites cost money and was seen as a desperate move for the average college student. Currently, there is no reliable data regarding how many people use SNSs, although marketing research indicates that SNSs are growing in popularity worldwide (comScore, 2009). Boyd & Ellison (2007) explained that some sites are designed with specific ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, political, or other identity-driven categories in mind. There are even SNSs for dogs (Facebook has a Dogbook), although their owners must manage their profiles (Boyd & Ellison, 2007).
in "searching" for people with whom they have an offline connection more than they "browse" for complete strangers to meet. Lampe, Ellison, and Steinfield (2006) explored social capital, and their research showed that Facebook does appear to play an important role how students maintain social capital and relationships. Gross and Acquisti (
Facebook users must determine how to reveal, or conceal, their private lives within a public forum. Despite the inherent dangers of high levels of self-disclosure on
- found that the majority of Facebook users disregard control of their personal information and the vast majority of users do not alter these privacy controls. However, no studies to date have examined the anticipation of future interaction and self-disclosure within the Facebook community. Little research has been done to evaluate the impact that computer-mediated technology has had on the theoretical view of relational closeness. With hundreds of social networking websites linking people together around the world, the research looks to suggest that the theory has evolved, eliminating layers in this global online world.
Privacy Concerns
Virtual communities can bring users closer together to form relationships, and users are seemingly not concerned with privacy, but want to feel connected and make new “friends.” Facebook users have tools available to protect their privacy, as users can restrict the accessibility of their profiles using a variety of means, particularly by restricting full profile viewing to their Facebook “friends” or friends of friends and networks.
Facebook, users continue to disclose large amounts of personal information on a publicly accessible network. Social networking sites prior to Facebook, such as Friendster and MySpace, had users who were not acting as their true selves, they were playing roles. Cassidy (2006) explained how there could be thirteen-year-olds pretending to be nineteen, virgins pretending to be vixens, forty-two-year-old F.B.I. agents pretending to be adolescent girls, and the list goes on. When Facebook began in 2003, Facebook users were required to have a valid college e-mail address (first at Harvard, then it slowly expanded and today anyone can join), most were students, and many were willing to post their e- mail and home addresses, their cell-phone numbers, and even their sexual orientation. (Cassidy, 2006). Most Facebook users worried more about wasting time than about their privacy or security concerns. This trend arguably continues today, since many users are not concerned with their privacy; many users consider their friends to be real friends, and therefore it is not harmful to post revealing personal information. On most social-networking sites, a search box allows users to lookup profiles of people anywhere on the site. “[Mark] Zuckerberg decided that Facebook members would be allowed to view only the profiles of other students at their own colleges, with one exception. If they obtained the permission of a student at another school, they could add that person to their list of friends. In retrospect, this decision was critical to Facebook’s success, because it preserved the site’s intimacy.” (Cassidy, 2006). Social networking site users, especially college students in the U.S., have high connectivity levels; therefore offline identities carry over to online behavior, and vice
property of the Facebook network. SNS users need to be aware of both the benefits and dangers of sharing themselves on SNS sites such as Facebook. Tufekci (2008) found that the true concern with both privacy and trust is temporal in nature, and many participants in Facebook studies are unaware of the interaction between current concern for visibility on Facebook and the possibility of future consequences. SNSs are also challenging legal conceptions of privacy. Hodge (2006) argued that the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution and legal decisions concerning privacy are not equipped to address social network sites. Boyd and Ellison (2007) asked, “Do police officers have the right to access content posted to Facebook without a warrant? The legality of this hinges on users' expectation of privacy and whether or not Facebook profiles are considered public or private.” Although it may be common sense, a good rule of thumb is to not friend your boss or other people that could take offense to what you and your friends may be posting to your profile(s). Kuchinskas (2009) explained how content on the internet never goes away; anything you say can and will be used against you. If you write something it’s out there, and that’s great if you want it to be, but you also need to be careful because everyone has access to it. Just Google yourself, or search pipl.com, and see what you find. If you’re ok with what you find then you’re on the right track.
Future Growth and Research
The balance of positive and negative exchanges within an interpersonal relationship must preserve a ratio where rewards outweigh the costs. This is essential for social penetration, or depth of self disclosure to form a foundation of a relationship. It is unclear whether the anticipation of future interaction can serve as the catalyst for continued interpersonal interaction, since creating Facebook friends within the Facebook network is defined differently than acquiring friendships face-to-face. Facebook members may not see any difference with what they disclose within either Facebook or face-to-face in the off-line world. Therefore, they will view what they share on Facebook and their offline self-disclosures as the same. As we live more frictionless lives, no longer struggling for physical survival, every thirst quenched, every appetite sated, every desire fulfilled, we can live in ever- increasing isolation because we no longer "need" people to provide for us, except psychologically. We can find whatever we need online. Individuals can participate in media (e.g. blogging, facebooking, tweeting, uploading videos of their dogs), but it is not a “real” experience, or is it? It is at best a surrogate for experiences, but it provides the illusion of participation. Social penetration theory will change in the future because of the Internet. A person can meet someone on a SNS such as Facebook and know everything about them before a conversation ever takes place. The phenomenon of Facebook needs further study as well. Future research should examine what features users are using to
References
Altman, I., & Taylor D. (1973). Social penetration: The development of interpersonal relationships. New York: Holt, Rinehart, & Winston. American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Black, J. (2004, February 20). The Perils and Promise of Online Schmoozing. Business Week. Retrieved from http://www.businessweek.com Boyd, D. M., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social network sites: Definition, history, and scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , 13(1), article 11. Brass, D., Butterfield, K. & Skaggs, B. (1998). Relationships and unethical behavior: A social network perspective. The Academy of Management Review , 23(1), 14-31. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/ Bulik, B. (2007, June 18). Upstart websites aim to consolidate social networking. Advertising Age , 78 (25), 27-27. Retrieved from Communication & Mass Media Complete database Cassidy, J. (2006, May 15). Me Media. The New Yorker. Retrieved from http://www.newyorker.com comScore (2009, February 19). comScore Media Metrix Ranks Top 50 U.S. Web Properties for January 2009. Retrieved February 27, 2009, from http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=2730. Cook, D. (2004). Adorno, Habermas, and the search for a rational society. New York: Routledge. Derlega, V., Winstead, B., Wong, P., & Greenspan, M. (1987). Self-disclosure and relationship
development: An attributional analysis. In M. E. Roloff & G. R. Miller (Eds.), Interpersonal processes: New directions in communication research (pp. 172-187). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. DiMenna-Nyselius Library, APA Citations. Retrieved May 7, 2009 from http://www.fairfield.edu/lib_APACitations.htm Educase Learning Initiative (2006). 7 Things You Should Know About Facebook. Retrieved May 7, 2009, from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7017.pdf Ellison, N., Steinfield, C & Lampe, C. (2006, June). Spatially Bounded Online Social Networks and Social Capital: The Role of Facebook. Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (2006). Retrieved from http://balzac.cnsi.ucsb.edu/inscites/wiki/images/8/85/Ellison_et_al_The_Role_of_Facebook.pdf Facebook vs. MySpace vs. Twitter (2009, April 28). Compete. Retrieved April 28, 2009, from http://siteanalytics.compete.com/facebook.com+twitter.com+myspace.com Facebook (2009). Statistics. Retrieved April 22, 2009, from http://facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics Gross, R., & Acquisti, A. (2005, November 7). Information revelation and privacy in online social networks (The Facebook case). Proceedings of ACM Workshop on Privacy in the Electronic Society (pp. 71 – 80 ). Alexandria, VA: Association for Computing Machinery Retrieved from http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/~acquisti/papers/privacy-facebook-gross- acquisti.pdf Hargittai, E
Hodge, M. J. (2006). The Fourth Amendment and privacy issues on the "new" Internet:
. (2007, October). Whose Space? Differences Among Users and Non-Users of Social Network Sites. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication , 13 (1), 276-297. doi: 10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00396.x Heath, R. & Bryant, J. (2000). Human communication theory and research: Concepts, contexts and challenges. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.