Watch Out Facebook and the need to evaluate
Date of Award
2011
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelors
Department
Social Sciences
First Advisor
Brain, David
Keywords
Facebook, Social media, Surviellance
Area of Concentration
Sociology
Abstract
Online social media have come to provide an important mode of communication and social interaction among peers, and have also recently proven to be significant forces in the global political scene. A social psychological construct measuring the tendency of individuals to form attitudes known as the need to evaluate is hypothesized to correlate positively with the intensity of individuals� use of the social networking website known as Facebook. Information found in the sociological literature leading to this hypothesis includes the evaluative nature of social monitoring and Facebook�s use as a tool to carry out this kind of monitoring and socioeconomic differences between Facebook�s userbase and that of other social networking websites which may also represent differences in the general need to evaluate of those userbases. A survey administered to the student body of a small liberal arts college testing this hypothesis uncovers no significant statistical correlation between any of the variables measured. Possible reasons for this lack of correlation are explored, with systematically depressed responses for certain Facebook use intensity variables suggested as cause for questioning the accuracy of the data. Other avenues for research are explored, including other factors that might affect social media use and further investigations of social media�s role in political activism and social monitoring.
Recommended Citation
Dawson, Horace, "Watch Out Facebook and the need to evaluate" (2011). Theses & ETDs. 4500.
https://digitalcommons.ncf.edu/theses_etds/4500
Rights
This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.