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Ignore the Affordances; It's the Social Norms: How Millennials and Gen-Z Think About Where to Make a Post on Social Media

Authors:

Sonia Dominguez,

Steve WhittakerAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 7, Issue CSCW2

Article No.: 311, Pages 1 - 26

https://doi.org/10.1145/3610102

Published: 04 October 2023 Publication History

Abstract

How do Millennial and Gen-Z young adults decide between competing social media when choosing where to post? Previous research argues that decisions can be modeled based on these users' Goals, and the Affordances, Features1, and Social Norms of those media. To evaluate this model, 19 participants were given different self-presentation scenarios and asked to choose between Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok. Participants also constructed a flowchart to represent their mental model of factors influencing their choices. Data suggest revisions to the model; rather than reflecting Affordances and Features, we found that Social Norms and Goals primarily drove participants' choices. Participants choose media based on a direct match between Goals and existing Social Norms. Only when they failed to detect such a match did participants consider Affordances and Features. We present a revised conceptual model based on these results and discuss social media design and theory implications.

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Cited By

Wang DEng JTurpitka MEpstein D(2024)Exploring Activity-Sharing Response Differences Between Broad-Purpose and Dedicated Online Social PlatformsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36868988:CSCW2(1-37)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686898

Index Terms

Ignore the Affordances; It's the Social Norms: How Millennials and Gen-Z Think About Where to Make a Post on Social Media
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Collaborative and social computing
    1. Collaborative and social computing theory, concepts and paradigms
      1. Social media
  2. Human computer interaction (HCI)

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Volume 7, Issue CSCW2

CSCW

October 2023

4055 pages

EISSN:2573-0142

DOI:10.1145/3626953

Editor:
Jeff Nichols
Apple Inc., United States

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Copyright © 2023 Owner/Author.

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Association for Computing Machinery

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Published: 04 October 2023

Published in PACMHCI Volume 7, Issue CSCW2

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Cited By

Wang DEng JTurpitka MEpstein D(2024)Exploring Activity-Sharing Response Differences Between Broad-Purpose and Dedicated Online Social PlatformsProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36868988:CSCW2(1-37)Online publication date: 8-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3686898

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