1. The Association between On-campus Residency and Facebook Network Structure Introduction -- Previous research has shown a myriad of benefits of living on- campus including : - decreased feelings of social isolation (Tinto,1993) - increased involvement on campus (Pascarella, 1985) - increased social support due to experiencing the transition to college with peers (Schudde, 2011) -- While living on campus does have many benefits, relationships take time to form and the length of time at college may also add to the number of social connections one has. -- Methods of developing and maintaining relationships as well as seeking social support are moving online (Manago, Taylor, & Greenfield, 2012). -- The goal of the current study was to see if living on campus would have the same effects on FB networks as it has on real- life social networks, namely, making these networks larger, less exclusive, and more dense. Hypotheses -- We hypothesized that living in on-campus housing would be associated with (1) more FB Friends (2) less exclusivity, (3) easier contact between friends. -- Additionally, we hypothesized that living on campus would predict these measures over and above the length of time that participants had been students at the university. Genavee Brown & Aparna Kumar Department of Psychology Western Washington University Summary & Discussion -- The number of FB friends students have is influenced by how long students have lived in on-campus housing over and above time at college. - This finding suggests that when students live in on-campus housing they meet more people in their dormitories than they would living in an apartment or at home. -- Exclusivity decreased as students spent more time at college, but was not influenced by living on campus. - This finding suggests that students may get involved in a larger number of on-campus and off-campus groups over time as they have more opportunities to join in activities. -- Average path length or the ease of contact between friends did not differ by amount of time at university or by living on campus. - The average path length matches network data from other empirical networks, such as actors who have starred in movies together (The Kevin Bacon Game). - This feature of naturally occurring networks demonstrates the Small World Principle, that people in social networks are never far from contacting one another, in the case of FB, only a few friend requests away. -- Future research should examine the relationship between FB networks and real-life social networks to see the extent to which these online networks mimic real-life networks. -- Hierarchical regression was used with quarters at WWU as the predictor in Block 1 and quarters on-campus entered as the predictor in Block 2 for each of the network measures (FF, EX, and EC) aparna.kumar05@gmail.comgenaveebrown@gmail.com Method -- Participants: 73 Western Washington University students (26 men, 47 women) participated in exchange for research credit. -- Measures: - Self-report measures of number of quarters attending WWU (M=4.14, SD=3.02) and number of quarters living in on- campus housing (M=2.00, SD=1.48) were gathered. Network Measures Block 1: Qtrs at WWU b R2R2 Block 2: Qtrs On-campus b R 2 Change FB Friends-2.93.02658.12**.066 Exclusivity-.513*.055.409.005 Ease of Contact.031.040-.036.008 Note: * = p <.05, ** = p <.01 -- Method (cont’d): - FB data were gathered using Netvizz an application that collects network data from Facebook pages. - Number of FB friends (FF) in the FB network is a measure of the size of the network (M=511, SD=261). - Exclusivity (EX), or clustering coefficient, is a measure of the tendency for one’s friends to be grouped together. If someone only has one group of friends, their EX will be larger. Smaller values signify more groups of friends who don’t know one another. Values were multiplied by 100 to improve scale (M=57.6, SD=6.4). - Ease of contact between two friends (EC), or average path length, is the number of contacts two individuals would need to make to find each other via their mutual friend’s FB network (M=2.5, SD=.5). - Each of these measures was calculated based on the FB network with the ego removed so that only connections between the participants’ friends were analyzed. Results Facebook friend network for a student living off campus FF = 56 EX =.54 EC= 2.59 Freshman 2 qtrs Off-campus 2 qtrs Facebook friend network for a student living on campus FF = 1,382 EX=.57 EC = 2.07 Freshman 2 qtrs On-campus 2 qtrs Note: Network graphs were produced in Gephi.