Are There Generational Differences? Social Media Use and Perceived Shared Reality Brian J. Bowe
Donghee Yvette Wohn
Western Washington University 516 High Street Bellingham, WA 98225 1-360-650-4436
New Jersey Institute of Technology University Heights, GITC5100 Newark, NJ, USA 1-973-596-5291
[email protected] ABSTRACT Are there generational differences in how social media influences our perceived reality of the world? Based on the survey results of 1,060 adults in the U.S., this article examines generational differences between so-called “digital natives” — millennial students who have grown up using information communication technologies — and earlier generations, who have adopted social media tools later in life. We examined both traditional and social media usage patterns to see if social media use plays a role in perceived shared reality—how people are influenced by their network. The results suggest that the two generations differ in terms of how different facets of social media use are correlated with their perception of shared reality. However, certain uses of social media, such as clicking links provided by social media contacts, contribute to perceived shared reality both for younger and older people.
Categories and Subject Descriptors K.4 Computers and Society Collaborative and Social Computing design and evaluations – Social network analysis, Knowledge representation and reasoning, Law, social and behavioral sciences—Sociology, User Characteristics— Age— Seniors, Adolescence
General Terms Algorithms, Human Factors, Theory
Keywords Digital Natives; Social Influence; Social Media; Millennials; Shared Reality; Social Constructionism.
1. INTRODUCTION Reality is socially constructed [5] and influenced by mass media [1] and, more recently, social media [30]. The Crystallization model [30] explains how social media influences perceived reality: perception of reality begins with exposure to information through various channels, including mainstream media, social media (e.g., social network sites, blogs), and individuals in social networks. Once an individual is exposed to information, they form an attitude towards that information, which is also influenced by the source from which the information was received [30]. 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 the author(s) 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]. SMSociety '15, July 27 - 29, 2015, Toronto, ON, Canada Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM 978-1-4503-3923-0/15/07…$15.00 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2789187.2789200 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. ACM 978-1-4503-3923-0/15/07…$15.00 DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2789187.27892002015
[email protected] Since reality begins with information exposure, it is important to understand that the source of information could have a major influence on an individual’s perception of reality—such as what is important ‘news’ around the world, topics of interest, and issues that are important to society. As Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) become increasingly ingrained in day-to-day life, some scholars — notably Prensky [3] — have posited that there are significant generational differences between older and younger users. If such generational differences exist in technology usage, it may also play a role in creating inevitable generational differences in perceptions of reality. However, there are also scholars who argue against the existence of such broad generational differences (e.g., [4,18]). It is thus important to examine whether there are differences between patterns of media use between the cohort known as “millennials” and earlier generations, and if such differences, should they exist, affect perceptions of reality.
2. GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES 2.1 ‘Digital Natives’ Revisited Prensky [26] popularized the concept of an emerging generation of technologically-adept digital natives, placed in counterpoint to older, less-fluent digital immigrants. A key part of Prensky’s [26] argument was that early and frequent exposure to ICT changed the thinking processes of digital natives, causing them to learn in different ways than earlier generations. This concept has become much cited in media and educational discourse, in part because Prensky built his argument around the specific challenges such a situation would create in classrooms, where teachers and students typically belong to different generational cohorts. The digital natives argument is not without its critics (e.g., [4,19,29]) who claim that it is overly simplistic, lacks rigorous and transparent empirical basis, and has become a cliché or even “faith-based religion” [4]. Some research indicates digital natives are not more visually literate than their older counterparts [6]. Although the more recent generation of students use technology more frequently, there is little evidence that they adopt radically different learning styles [24]. Moreover, while lifelong exposure to technology creates a generational gap, motivated older adults are just as able to become fluent with digital technologies as younger people [13]. Joiner et al. [17], offer a further complication of the picture by identifying sub-generational differences between older members of the millennial generation and younger members. Due to these studies, some suggest that the term digital natives is misleading and should be abandoned in scientific writing [20]. Moreover, some scholars argue that simply providing students with access to technological tools is insufficient. Just because
students have similar access to technology does not necessarily mean they use it in similar ways. In fact, there still exists a “participatory divide” [16] that is sometimes unrelated to technology. Jenkins and colleagues [16] argue that young peoples’ contributions to society through ICT are expressions of a participatory culture, but access to the Internet alone does not provoke the development of such a culture. But even as scholars critique the overly simplistic discourse about digital natives, it is clear that there remain important questions underlying the concept worth studying. When describing the digital native generation, Palfrey and Gasser [25] suggested there is one thing we know for sure about them: “These kids are different” (p. 2).
however, does not take into account the sheer volume of social media use. It may be that those with greater social media use are more influenced by social media in forming their perception of shared reality. Shared reality could also depend upon with whom one communicates on social media and the types of activities one performs. Our second research question asks whether the extent of social media use and with whom users communicate on social media have an effect on shared reality. The question examines how much people are influenced by their social network regarding what issues they think are important and what they think in general. RQ2: What is the relationship between different types of usage of social media use and individuals’ perception of shared reality?
2.2 Generational Differences and Media Use
4. METHODS
While previous research has suggested that this generational divide is subtler than was earlier posited, it remains uncertain whether such a divide exists — not in how much of the technology people of different generations are using, but in how their use of technology affects other aspects of their lives.
An online survey was emailed to all faculty, staff, students, and select alumni (N=27,298) at a mid-sized public university in the Midwest, asking them to participate in a survey about social media use. There were 2,032 total respondents (response rate= 7.4%) who started the survey and 1,060 who completed 80% of the survey. This included 1,306 undergraduate and graduate students, 255 faculty and staff members, and 9 alumni and friends of the university who have university-issued email accounts. All respondents were asked basic demographic questions such as age, gender, student or faculty status, and a series of questions related to their media use and social influence. Most of the participants were female (69.3%), followed by male (30.2%) and transgender (.5%). The median age was 32 when the survey was fielded. Thus age comparisons were made based on being 32 or older, or younger than 32. This cutoff separates respondents born in 1979 or earlier, and those born in 1980 or later. This age cutoff was consistent with Palfrey and Gasser [25], who identified “digital natives” as individuals born after 1980, which was when social digital technologies, such as Usenet and bulletin board systems, were available online (p.1). We would like to note, however, that there have been some other interpretations of when the millennial generation begins [11,21].
There is some evidence of generational differences, but also of rapid changes in how people use ICTs generally. In 2010, a Pew report found that 73% of teens and 72% of young adults used social network sites, while only 40% of adults 30 and older used them [23]. By 2014, those usage figures had jumped to 89% of people aged 18-29 and 82% of people aged 30-49 [8]. Our first research question sets out to test assumptions of generational differences regarding how much people consume different types of Internet media, including social media, traditional news websites, and blogs: RQ1: Is there a generational difference in frequency of media use between members of the millennial generation and earlier generations?
3. Social Media and Social Influence If there is (or is not) a difference in terms of how different generations use media, the next question examines how media use is related to social influence. Social influence theories suggest that people are affected by others’ perceptions, regardless of whether or not those perceptions are correct [2,10]. These theories explain how people endeavor to adjust their attitudes in a manner congruent with the group perceived to be the most desirable. There are a number of different theories of social influence, the most popular ones being conformity and compliance (for review, see Cialdini & Goldstein [7]).
3.1 Perceived Shared Reality Higgins [14] had a more specific stance on social influence, explaining social influence as a communicative process. He described the act of communication as a social act that is a manifestation of an individual’s desire to achieve “shared reality,” [14]. Echterhoff et al. [9] said that for individuals to achieve shared reality, this reality has to be about a target referent of knowledge, or a specific topic of conversation. Shared reality is not just a replication of another person’s inner state, but about a specific piece of information that is a combination of fact and opinion. Once a shared reality is established, it can remain stable even if there are competing shared realities [12].
3.2 Social Media and Shared Reality As mentioned earlier, Wohn and Bowe [31] mapped out a model for how social media would influence shared reality. This model,
Frequency of media use was six categories: once a day, multiple times a day, once a week, multiple times a week, once a month, multiple times a month. Individuals were asked about three types of media use: news websites, blogs, and social media. More granular social media usage questions included with whom they connected with on social media (family, friends, colleagues, classmates, brands, and organizations) and if they clicked on links shared by their contacts on social media. Our operational measure of social influence was perceived shared reality (M= 3.2, SD= .95), which was an original three-item scale (Cronbach’s alpha= .82) measuring the extent of social influence in the individual’s perception of what social topics are important. The items were: “My social network influences what issues I feel are important,” “My social network influences what I think,” and “My social network teaches me about world events.” Participants rated these items on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from “Strongly Disagree” to “Strongly Agree.”
5. RESULTS 5.1 Generational differences in Media Usage To examine generational differences in media usage patterns (RQ1) we ran independent-samples t-tests between the older and younger cohorts (mean split, age 32) in terms of frequency of different types of media use (Table 1). Millennial participants
reported significantly higher frequency of social media usage than older participants (t(1030)=8.12, p
