Theme 4: Quantitative research

I chose the paper Social Networking Sites: Their Users and Social Implications — A Longitudinal Study by Petter, B. Brandtzæg (2012) 

1Which quantitative method or methods are used in the paper? Which are the benefits and limitations of using these methods?

The paper is using a longitudinal study that consisted of three survey waves. They collected data from a representative sample of 2,000 online users, aged 15–75 years, in Norway from 2008 to 2010.  The response rate was 71% in the first survey, 69% in the second and 35% in the last one. According to the writers the dropout rate is expected in longitudinal surveys.

It is always hard to know whom you are actually reaching with your survey. In the table in the paper it seems that they had a pretty even distribution over the different age groups and genders though. And another benefit is that Norway has an ideal population for studying the social impact of SNSs, given its exceptionally high Internet and SNSs connectivity (Internet World Statistics, 2010).

2What did you learn about quantitative methods from reading the paper?

That the dropout rate is so high, but still expected.

3Which are the main methodological problems of the study? How could the use of the quantitative method or methods have been improved?

The main problem I see is how they measure loneliness.
Five items from the Revised UCLA Loneliness Scale were included:
1) I feel in tune with the people around me,
2) No one really knows me well,
3) There are people I can turn to,
4) I feel left out,
5) I have difficulties in making friends.All items were rated on a 4-point scale, ranging from (1) ‘‘Never’’ to (4) ‘‘Always’’.

Even though this seems to be a method that has been used before I don’t believe you can measure loneliness so easy. Loneliness is different to all people, and outing a number on your loneliness seems too simple.

“Physical Activity, Stress, and Self-Reported Upper Respiratory Tract Infection”.

They selected the participant’s randomly from the Swedish Population Registry. 5000 men and women aged 20-70 years were invited to participate in the study. A web questionnaire via email was sent out and then 5 follow up questionnaires. Out of the 5000 invited, 1111 people followed through the whole process, finishing all 5 questionnaires.

In quantitative research it is good that you reach a big number of people in a small amount of time, but it can be very hard to know whom you reach. We heard at the lecture the example of a couple of students researching iPad use. They sent out the questionnaire in an online forum, where all the members are men. The study then showed that 90% of iPad users are men, which of course isn’t true. But it was true in that study since all the participants in the study were men.  

Qualitative and quantitative research can often complement each other. Usually you cannot generalize conclusions with qualitative research, but you can originate hypotheses whose general validity can be verified for a large number of cases with quantitative method.

Examples of qualitative methods are surveys with open answers and interviews. A benefit of qualitative research is that you can get a deeper understanding for an issue, but it is usually very time consuming.

This week we read two texts on theory. I felt that it was fun to read the text and finally we read something that I might find useful in the future. The first two weeks have been more difficult to see the purpose of the assignments compared to this week.

I read the paper "The Benefits of Facebook " Friends: "Social Capital and College students' Use of Online Social Network Sites ." I found the paper interesting and after reading it, I decided that the theory was analysis. During the seminar, I got this confirmed when a few other students had read the same paper and interpreted it the same way, and decided at the same theory out of Gregor's five theory types.

At the seminar on Monday discussed the various journals we have chosen and our various papers in small groups. Later we presented for the other groups what the text was about and various limitations in the texts.

We chose an interesting text that was about how social media makes people more or less alone. The text had five parameters recorded in the assessment, but our discussion focused on how to measure something as abstract as loneliness. Is loneliness about how many hours a day you are alone, or how many hours you feel alone, or something else? Stefan then mentioned that the perceived is not the same as reality. This I thought was an interesting discussion since I think it is almost impossible to measure emotions as loneliness. All people have a variety of needs so how can you put a measure on that feeling? We also talked about prediction and explanation that Gregor wrote about. The writers of our chosen paper came to some conclusions, but they could not explain them. One conclusion was that men get more lonely from using social media than women, but why was never answered, which left me thinking; how interesting is something we cannot explain it?

Theme three: research and theory

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

Impact factor: 1.778

The Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication is a web-based scholarly journal. The journal has its focus onsocial science research on communicating with computer-based media technologies, and publishes work by scholars in communication, business, education, political science, sociology, psychology, media studies, information science, and other disciplines. 

“The Benefits of Facebook ‘‘Friends:’’ Social Capital and College Students’ Use of Online Social Network Sites“
Nicole B. Ellison Charles Steinfield Cliff Lampe

The paper is written in 2007 and examines the relationship between the use of Facebook, and the formation and maintenance of social capital. The paper uses theories on Social Capital and they form seven hypothesis. They sent out an anonymous survey to 800 random undergraduatestudents at Michigan State University. 94% of the undergraduate students were Facebook members. Theparticipants used Facebook to maintain or intensify relationships characterized by some form of offline connection such as dormitory proximity or a shared class.The writers also found that there is a positive relationship between certain kinds of Facebook use and the maintenance and creation of social capital and Facebook appears to play an important role in the process.

1.

Briefly explain to a first year student what theory is, and what theory is not.

There are different perspectives on theory at a general level. Philosophers of science are likely to see theory as providing explanations and predictions. In the 1920s Popper described theories as what we use to rationalize, to explain and to master the world. Theories aim to describe, explain and enhance understanding of the world. The core of theory is interactions, causations, and abstraction and generalization about phenomenon. A collection of facts, or knowledge of an individual fact or event is not regarded as theory, even though these kinds of data may form the foundation for theoretical development.

2.

Describe the major theory or theories that are used in your selected paper. Which theory type (see Table 2 in Gregor) can the theory or theories be characterized as?

The major theory in this text is about about social capital. I believe the theories are a type I. Where the theories areexplaining what is and not aiming at predicting what will be. They are doing the research on gathered data, and analysing the data and tryingto make conclusions.

3.

Which are the benefits and limitations of using the selected theory or theories?

This paper was written in 2007 when facebook was very new, so the benefits of the selected analysis theory is that it gives answers to an area that had not been researched too much. It isgood that the writers rely on facts and do not speculate toomuch Also that the paper is based on facts and not too muchspeculation makes the text easy to understand and follow.

Theme 2: after blog

This week we read a couple of chapters in the book “Dialetic of Enlightenment”. Some parts were a bit easier to read than others, and I didn't find it quite as hard to read as last week. But it was still a great challenge, and it took forever.  I’ve learned about enlightenment and myths, which I had no knowledge around before. During the lecture I hoped to get an even better picture, but I didn’t feel like I learned that much, I probably lost focus. Therefore I read the other students posts to learn a bit more.
The chapter I found most interesting reading was “Enlightenment of Mass deception”, and that is also what I found most interesting to read about in the other students’ blog posts. Culture industry is what mass production has done to culture. Culture now a days is treated more as a product that as art, and money is the focus. Since there are a few people controlling what reaches the audience, they can easily control what kind of culture people get exposed to and what is set as a standard. What I found really interesting is how we are contributing to mass culture without really even knowing it. Companies try to map our habits and from that data make their product as attractive as possible to as many people as possible. That means that they can determine what culture is. Adorno and Horkheimer criticize this, saying that the industry controls humanity in the same way as a dictator would do, I feel that this is kind of true. And it is strange that money is what determines what kind of culture we get exposed to.

Since I was not able to attend the seminar, I asked my friends what they discussed and found the part about censorship interesting. Ever since I visited China I have thought that censorship is something bad.  The Chinese people should be able to choose for themselves what to access and not, and so should I. But censorship isn’t always a bad thing; for example censoring child pornography is a good thing, I think we can all agree on that. But censoring Facebook and Google in China seems unnecessary. All countries and people are different and have different beliefs, so why should one person, company or government get to decide what to censor and not...

After blog 1

I have never read a philosophical text, nevertheless a philosophical text from the early 1900’s. It was initially very difficult for me to understand why I read the text and I had a hard time understanding the message. The first thing I thought was “this is the reason why I’m in engineering, I do not understand these things!!”, things like "is the table still there when I close my eyes." makes me crazy!! Of course it still exists when I close my eyes! I’m definitely not used to these kinds of thoughts.

After reading other people's blog posts, I’m not sure if I got a better picture of what I actually have read and learned. Since we did not have the opportunity to listen to a lecture or discuss during the seminar, I don’t think that I learned as much as I could have after writing the first blog post. But I have realized a couple of things! I think that it is impressive how the other students have expressed themselves about this kind of text. I have no experience of analyzing or explaining psychological texts and I can’t believe how much people got out of the text. I really hope I can develop my ability to interpret and analyze texts like this in the course. At the same time as I was impressed, I felt that a lot of blog posts where hard to understand because they complicated things instead of making it easier to understand. But I think that these complicated explanations demonstrate how difficult it is to understand these definitions.

1. Sense data is the mental image we have in our minds about a real object. For example if I look at an apple, then I get a picture of the apple in my mind. That picture is green/red and round. This image in my mind is an example of sense data. These sense data are not the truth about the object it is the properties our mind has made up about the object.

Since two people don’t have the same experiences or the exact same sensation at the same time, Russell says that the sense data is personal.  The sense data can be alike though.

He introduces this notion to make us understand that things aren’t always as they seem to be. Our senses do not tell us the truth about objects but how we think the object is from previous experience.

2. A proposition is a description about an object; something is ”so and so”. This proposition may be true or false and can be a belief of something. A statement of fact is also a description about something but has to be able to be backed up by evidence or facts if anyone questions it. A proposition becomes a statement of fact when many prove it.

3. There are two kinds of descriptions; ambiguous and definite. An ambiguous description describes something on the form of  “a is so and so” and is only a description of something, while a definite description is on the form “a is the so and so” which is defining. “A man” is an ambiguous description and “the man with the iron mask” is a definite description.

A definite description is the description, we know that it is “the so and so” which means that there is only one object having this property.  The proposition “a is the so and so” means that a has the property so and so, and nothing else has.

4. A true belief is not a knowledge, we need proof to say that something is true.  When we read a text we make an interpretation of the text and form our own statement. We can know things that are translated from a statement in to our own opinions. In many cases we think we have learned a truth of a fact, when we actually have made our self a belief.

In an example Russell talks about a man who believes that the late Prime Ministers name began with a B, which was true since his name was Bannerman. But what if the man thought that Balfour was the late Prime Minister? Then his belief is still true, but would not be thought to constitute knowledge.