THE NETWORK IN THE GARDEN Eric Gilbert | Karrie Karahalios | - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

THE NETWORK IN THE GARDEN Eric Gilbert | Karrie Karahalios | Christian Sandvig | University of Illinois

Do rural and urban people use social media differently?

1. rural demographics 2. brief history of rural telephony 3. our quantitative study of rural social media

rural: towns with less than 2,500 people not connected to a metropolitan area U.S. Census Bureau

U Hundred, West Virginia Population: 344 http://flickr.com/photos/9548969@N02/722111742 (used with permission)

Rural population U.S. 24 % World 50 % 0 10 20 30 40 50 UN Demographic Yearbook, 2003. U.S. Census Bureau Summary Files 1 & 3, 2000.

1. rural demographics 2. brief history of rural telephony 3. our quantitative study of rural social media

Pillow Talk, Universal Pictures, 1959.

Claude Fischer. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.

Claude Fischer. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.

Claude Fischer. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.

“ Farmers as a class are troublesome customers to handle and are apt to have an exaggerated idea of their own rights. The bumptiousness of certain farmers can be overcome only by constant efforts to educate them … Telephone industry executive, 1918 (Fischer 96)

RELATED WORK Falk: rural social capital Sociologia Ruralis, 2000 Larson & Baym: rural internet use University of Kansas, Dept. of Communications, 2007 Relevant social media work Adamic, Baym, boyd, Donath, Ellison, Lampe, Golder, Hancock, Resnick, Terveen, Wellman, Whittaker, …

Do rural and urban people use social media differently?

OUR DATASET 3,000 MySpace public users 340,000 online friendships 200,000 interpersonal messages

every U.S. zipcode built using ZipDecode by Fry and Heer.

every U.S. zipcode + our sample built using ZipDecode by Fry and Heer.

demographics & usage MySpace ID N Rural 1661 R 54M Urban 1721 U 2.7M 0 500 1000 1500 2000 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 Days since login Age R 4 R 22 U 24 U 10 0 5 10 15 20 25 0 2 4 6 8 10 Mann-Whitney p < 0.001

rural people will have … H1. fewer friends and comments H2. more women H3. more private profiles H4. closer friends H5. a preference for strong ties over weak ties

H1. Rural users will have far fewer friends and comments than urban users.

H1. fewer friends and comments Friends Comments R 45 R 40 U 104 U 118 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 Reciprocal relationships Unique commenters R 2 R 11 U 5 U 29 0 1 2 3 4 5 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 Mann-Whitney p < 0.001

H2. Females will account for a greater proportion of rural users than urban users.

H2. more women Gender distribution R 48.5 % male 51.5 % female U 59.4 % male 40.6 % female Chi-square p < 0.001

H2. more women Male friendships Female friendships R 35.5 % male 64.5 % female R 42.5 % male 57.5 % female U 38.6 % male 61.4 % female U 43.7 % male 56.3 % female Chi-square p = 0.011 Chi-square p > 0.05

H3. Rural users will set their profiles to private at higher rates than urban users.

H3. more private profiles Pro fi le privacy Rural 68.5 % public 31.5 % private Urban 74.9 % public 25.1 % Chi-square p < 0.001

H3. more private profiles Female profile privacy Male pro fi le privacy R 60.8 % public 39.2 % private R 78.7 % public 21.3 % U 73.0 % public 27.0 % U 77.4 % public 22.6 % Chi-square p < 0.001 Chi-square p = 0.613

H4. Rural users’ friends will live much closer than urban users’ friends.

H4. closer friends Median distance to friends Rural 88.8 mi Urban 201.7 mi 0 50 100 150 200 250 Mann-Whitney p < 0.001

1 Urban Rural 0.9 132 . 84 ) 0 . 441 P ( friend > x ) ≈ e − ( x 0.8 Probability of a strong tie R 2 = 0 . 994 0.7 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 Distance from strong tie (mi)

H5. Compared to urban users, rural users’ distribution of friends will preference strong ties over weak ties.

rural people will have … H1. fewer friends and comments H2. more women H3. more private profiles H4. closer friends H5. a preference for strong ties over weak ties

CONCLUSIONS

Rural people use social media. Rural and urban people use social media differently. Far fewer friends; friends much closer to home; more private profiles; more women

Rural people want to reach beyond their communities, but usually do not.

DESIGN IMPLICATIONS 1. Build for incremental trust. 2. Introduce people.

A rural perspective could shed new light on technology. Eric Gilbert | Karrie Karahalios | Christian Sandvig University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

BACKUP SLIDES

SNOWBALL SAMPLING sample point Salganik & Heckathorn. Sampling and Estimation in Hidden Populations Using Respondent-Driven Sampling.

SNOWBALL SAMPLING sample point Salganik & Heckathorn. Sampling and Estimation in Hidden Populations Using Respondent-Driven Sampling.