ICT Nye bruksmønstre i online communities. Jan Heim Petter Bae Brandtzæg SINTEF IKT

ICT Members of online communities: ● Who are they? ● What do they do? ● What do they think about the community?

ICT Overview of communities in the study Communities StartNumber of members Type of application Open to every-one Biip 2005 June Youth, social network Yes Hamar-Ungdom 2002 August Youth. Local, social network Yes Nettby 2006 September Social network Yes Underskog 2005 November Cultural and social net- working, Oslo based No

ICT The study: Sample size

ICT ● Who are they?

ICT Gender Online communities seems to differ with respect to their composition of the two genders Girls use online communities much more frequent than they use ICT-technologies in general.

ICT Age 15:916:8 22:8 29:10 41:10 Online communities are homogeneous with respect to age. Members of online communities are younger than the general population.

ICT Frequency of visits Community members are very frequent visitors; more than 85% visit their community daily or several times a week. About 30% of the general Internet population visits a community daily or several times a week.

ICT Number of communities visited daily Community members are usually visiting several communities, a majority visits two or more communities daily

ICT Frequency of visits to most visited community Relationship between community engagement and attitude towards technology It is very important to me to have a well- equipped and good PC. I am dependent on Internet to get several practical tasks done. The mobile phone is very important to me, to keep in touch with family and friends. To me, Internet is an important way to keep in touch with other people. PC and Internet is very good sources for entertainment to me. Technology Usefulness Mobile phone Communication Entertainment Degree of agreement Community members are more positive to the technology as a means for entertainment and communication than the general Internet population.

ICT ● What do they do in the communities?

ICT Why are you here? What are your reasons for visiting this community today? Most visits have a social purpose. Communities differ with respect to members reading and writing contributions.

ICT Why are you here? ● Community members often have several different reasons for a visit. ● What they do can be classified into typical usage patterns. ● Members that tend to give the same answerers to “What are your reasons for visiting this community today? ” are clustered together. (Cluster analysis).

ICT What do they do? Five usage patterns: ● “Just-one-thing” Give few reasons for being in the community, spread equally over the four communities, (10 – 20 %), and age; somewhat more males. ● “Kill some time”. Engaged in several activities to some degree, contribute very little, spread equally over the four communities, (20 – 30 %), age and gender. ● Socializing Communicating with others, typical for young girls, frequent at Biip, practically absent in Underskog. ● Debating Discuss, read and write contributions. Unequally distributed among the communities, very frequent in Underskog, practically absent in Biip. Somewhat more males. ● Active Engage in all kinds of activities, unequally distributed among communities, most frequent in Nettby and HamarUngdom Social exchange is the main reason for using online communities: There are two main modalities for this social exchange; informal chatting and more serious debate. Biip is a typical “small-talk” community with younger members, while Undeskog is a typical “debating” community where the participants are older.

ICT How many different people did you have contact with within this community during the last week? % Majority contacted 3 to 10 people during a week. Small (but statistical significant) differences between communities.

ICT How many contacts do you have in your profile/network at this community?. % Substantial differences between communities with regard to members contact net. More than half of all members have more than 30 persons in their profiles Members of Hamarungdom have more contacts in their profiles, members of Nettby have less, probably reflecting how long the community has been running.

ICT ● What do they think about the community?

ICT What do users think about their community? Strongly agree Strongly disagree Most users have very positive attitude towards their community. Misuse and harassment is not a very dominant issue; however ….

ICT Harassment and Misuse Harassment Misuse 20 % has experienced harassment, 13% has experienced misuse of pictures/video. No difference between the genders.

ICT Reasons for having stopped to use or using an online community less frequent – responses from the 100 longest (number of characters) descriptions. ● People/friends (26), Too few interesting people, too few own friends in the community, ● Content (25) To many recurrences, nothing new is happening, uninteresting content. ● Usability (17) To hard to use, difficult to change profile, slow service, to many usage problems. ● Harassment/bullying: (19), 15 girls, 4 boys. Several of these girls have experienced sexual harassment from older boys or men. ● Commercialization (8), To much advertisements, expensive to buy extra services, expect services to be free of charge. ● Trust (7), To many users with fake id, to much crap from other users. ● Time consuming/isolating (5): It takes time from real life connections. It takes to long to get to know others, therefore contacts become superficial. You don’t get to really know people. ● Moderators (3): Dissatisfaction with moderators. ● Other: 5 Dissatisfaction with a community first of all comes from unsatisfactory social relations; uninteresting content and bad usability comes next.

ICT To sum up: Online communities are homogeneous with respect to age. Community members are very frequent visitors; more than 85% visit their community daily or several times a week. Community members are usually visiting several communities, a majority visits two or more communities daily or several times a week. Community members are more positive to the technology as a means for entertainment and communication than the general Internet population. More than half of all members have more than 30 persons in their profiles Most visits have a social purpose. Communities differ with respect to members reading and writing contributions. Five Usage patterns: ”Just-one-thing” “Kill some time”. Socializing Debating Active Five Usage patterns: ”Just-one-thing” “Kill some time”. Socializing Debating Active Girls use online communities much more frequent than they use ICT-technologies in general. Most users have very positive attitude towards their community. 20 % has experienced harassment, 13% has experienced misuse of pictures/video. No difference between the genders. Dissatisfaction with a community first of all comes from unsatisfactory social relations; uninteresting content and bad usability comes next.