research-article

To search or to ask: the routing of information needs between traditional search engines and social networks

Authors:

Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch,

Meredith Ringel Morris,

Darren GergleAuthors Info & Claims

CSCW '14: Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing

Pages 16 - 27

https://doi.org/10.1145/2531602.2531706

Published: 15 February 2014 Publication History

Abstract

In status message question asking (SMQA), members of social networking sites make use of status messages to express information needs to friends and contacts. We present findings from a laboratory study that examined 82 participants' SMQA behaviors in the broader context of online information seeking. When given the option of using a search engine and/or a social network, participants leveraged SMQA for 20% of their information needs, most often posing a question to their network in addition to issuing a query. We show the important roles played by the specificity of the information need and the perceived audience of a given network on routing decisions. We then demonstrate that routing decisions have varied effects on participants' satisfaction, information value, and trust of outcomes. In addition to highlighting the complementary advantages and disadvantages of search and SMQA, our findings suggest that search engines can better address a meaningful portion of people's information needs by integrating SMQA capabilities into their systems.

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Cited By

Schoegje THardman LDe Vries APieters T(2024)Improving expert search effectiveness: Comparing ways to rank and present search resultsProceedings of the 2024 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval10.1145/3627508.3638296(56-65)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627508.3638296
Soliman NKang HLatzke MBragg JChang JZhang AKarger D(2024)Mitigating Barriers to Public Social Interaction with Meronymous CommunicationProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642241(1-26)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642241
Milton AMaestre JRoy AUmbach RChancellor S(2024)Seeking in Cycles: How Users Leverage Personal Information Ecosystems to Find Mental Health InformationProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641894(1-16)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3641894
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Index Terms

To search or to ask: the routing of information needs between traditional search engines and social networks
1. Human-centered computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

CSCW '14: Proceedings of the 17th ACM conference on Computer supported cooperative work & social computing

February 2014

1600 pages

ISBN:9781450325400

DOI:10.1145/2531602

General Chairs:
Susan Fussell
Cornell University
,
Wayne Lutters
University of Maryland, Baltimore County
,
Program Chairs:
Meredith Ringel Morris
Microsoft Research
,
Madhu Reddy
Penn State University

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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Published: 15 February 2014

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CSCW'14: Computer Supported Cooperative Work

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CSCW '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 134 of 497 submissions, 27%;

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Cited By

Schoegje THardman LDe Vries APieters T(2024)Improving expert search effectiveness: Comparing ways to rank and present search resultsProceedings of the 2024 Conference on Human Information Interaction and Retrieval10.1145/3627508.3638296(56-65)Online publication date: 10-Mar-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3627508.3638296
Soliman NKang HLatzke MBragg JChang JZhang AKarger D(2024)Mitigating Barriers to Public Social Interaction with Meronymous CommunicationProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642241(1-26)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642241
Milton AMaestre JRoy AUmbach RChancellor S(2024)Seeking in Cycles: How Users Leverage Personal Information Ecosystems to Find Mental Health InformationProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641894(1-16)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3641894
Marler WHargittai E(2023)Understanding the Evolving Online Learning Landscape: The Case of Science and ReligionSocial Media + Society10.1177/205630512311929729:3Online publication date: 29-Aug-2023
https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051231192972
Moran RProchaska SGrasso ISchlegel I(2023)Navigating Information-Seeking in Conspiratorial Waters: Anti-Trafficking Advocacy and Education Post QAnonProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/35795107:CSCW1(1-27)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3579510
Liu JLiu J(2023)From Rational Agent to Human with Bounded RationalityA Behavioral Economics Approach to Interactive Information Retrieval10.1007/978-3-031-23229-9_3(65-89)Online publication date: 18-Feb-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-23229-9_3
Rabiei MFatahi S(2022)A New Framework for Research Supply and Demand Using Text AnalyticsIEEE Engineering Management Review10.1109/EMR.2022.317923850:3(81-95)Online publication date: 1-Sep-2022
https://doi.org/10.1109/EMR.2022.3179238
Wang XPark S(2021)The Effect of SNS Fatigue on the 20's SNS Users' Self-Presentation: Focusing on the Characteristics of Each SNS UsersJournal of Digital Contents Society10.9728/dcs.2021.22.7.106922:7(1069-1082)Online publication date: 31-Jul-2021
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ZAMORA J(2021)Searching for the Next Billion: Global Design for Information Seeking Across CulturesEthnographic Praxis in Industry Conference Proceedings10.1111/epic.120672021:1(175-189)Online publication date: 24-Dec-2021
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Piercy CLee S(2020)Reconsidering ‘Ties’: The Sociotechnical Job Search NetworkInternational Journal of Business Communication10.1177/232948842096568060:2(699-721)Online publication date: 26-Oct-2020
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