The Use of Twitter in the Organisation of Users Everyday Lives - Assignment Example

ABSTRACT The study focuses on the use of Twitter as a social networking tool in the organisation of users’ everyday lives. Because of this, different aspects and areas of the use of the social media website were investigated. To ensure balance and generalisation, a population made up of people from different demographic backgrounds has been used. Results from the study indicates that users of Twitter see social networking as an important part of their lives, which keeps them going and gets them going and serve different purposes. To achieve these different purposes, the users have different ways in which they organise their activities. A total of 14 major activities were seen as part the usage of Twitter. These activities were common in most of the participants but were not always present in all the participants. The 14 activities can be organised into specific activities such as account usage, messaging, following, profile work, and creation of topic. Of the various activities that participants perform, it was found that some were active whiles others were passive activities. Most forms of passive activities involved reading while active activities involved interaction with the keyboard or mouse in sending messages. PRACTICALITIES OF THE STUDY The topic that the study looked at is “Understanding the Use of Twitter in the Organisation of Users’ Everyday Lives”. The topic was based on the purpose of understanding how people use Twitter and what is being done in their use of twitter how they organise their activity. The study was therefore taken from an ethnographic perspective, where the different personal and cultural considerations made by people in the use of Twitter were all considered. The setting of the study was a typical workplace setting, where participants were part of the people I had very regular interaction with. This setting was selected due to the understanding that I have about their daily social lives and the ones they have for me. The fieldwork lasted for a total of 21 with almost 4 hours spent with each of the 5 participants. For each participant, a multiple meeting was used to observe the person. After this, 3 days were used to transcribe and analyse the data that were collected from the field work Because of the research setting involved, all participants were adults 18 years old and above. Part of the data collection however diverted to concerns that the participants have for their minor kids or siblings using Twitter. There were 5 participants in all, 4 of who were males and 1 female. The participants had different responsibilities at work including human resource management, customer service and engineering. During this study different tools and resources were used such as field notes, informal Interviews, Video and audio recordings and Digital Resources such as photos of participants’ tweets to help in analysing and identifying their methods and satisfy the unique adequacy requirement of methods. The types of data gathered were primary data about the use of Twitter by participants. There were both passive and active data gathered. Passive data involved the observation of participants as they used Twitter by directly interacting with the system. The observation was however a structured one, using an observation guide as given in the appendix. Active data collection on the other hand involved interaction between the researcher and the users of Twitter. For most of these participants, their activity involved exchanging messages, ideas or pictures with their contacts on Twitter. An informal interview guide was used to ask specific questions to know the pattern of usage of Twitter and the meaning of this to participants. The appendix has the informal interview guide and responses from participants. Data gathering was performed following the ethical guidance such as privacy and confidentiality. Other ethical considerations that were followed have been attached to this report as appendix. ANALYTIC APPROACH An analytic approach has been explained as the use of appropriate strategies and processes to break a problem down into smaller units that are easy to be handled and applicably solved [6]. It has also noted that there are two major analytic approaches, which are instinctive approach and structured approach [5]. In this study, the structured approach was used. In such structured approach, the ethnographer keeps the mind wide open to accommodate alternatives. The advantage with this approach is that it enables the ethnographer to examine each element of the activity that has been broken down into smaller units in a separate, systematic and sufficient manner [4]. By implication, the structured approach ensures that each unit of the activity of users of Twitter becomes an independent evidence on its own based on which valid conclusions may be drawn. This approach also allows for interaction with participants as it gets down to the bottom of issues. The structured approach was used in line with the ethnographic perspective of the study where the ethnographer had to study into the cultural variables of participants. Ethnographic studies are highly qualitative, meaning that if analytic approaches such as the structured approach are not employed, there may be virtually no means to have a tangible measure of the variables that are collected [7]. As part of the structured approach, there were a sequential activity order was observed from the users of Twitter. The sequential activity order has been presented at the appendix section. The sequential activity order was prepared as part of the structured approach. This is because the sequential activity order broke the entire data collection process into 14 major units or tasks. Under each of these tasks that the ethnographer observed, there was something unique that the ethnographer wanted to achieve by way of unpacking each activity which had been noticed to be performed by the participants. This was done to achieve a full understanding of how the users organise their use of twitter as a normal activity of their everyday lives. The topic of the study formed the overall aim of the study. To achieve the overall aim, the specific objectives had to be achieved one after the other based on the 14 activities that were observed from the users of Twitter as part of their everyday way of life. Data were collected from participants engaging in two major activities. These were passive activity and active activity. The passive activities were those that did not require the participants to be engaged in any vigorous activity but to interact with their systems. The active activities on the other hand were highly interactive in nature and involved direct interaction with their systems or their friends and users on Twitter. For most forms of passive activities being performed by the users, the researcher collected data by use of observation and informal interview. There were other forms of active activities performed by the ethnographer on the users of Twitter. For example the ethnographer was actively engaged in taking notes and video and audio recording the participants whiles they sat in front of their computers and were replying to messages, tweeting and retweeting. These kinds of data were actually easy to spot from the ethnographer because those active data has left trace behind it while passive data could not be spotted unless the ethnographer interviewed the participants. Due to the informal interview, it was possible to understand reasons participants performed specific passive activities under the sequential activity order. This means that the observation led to the preparation of the sequential activity order, which was also used for the informal interview and analysis of the ethnography. In the next section which is the findings section, the results that were produced under each of the 14 activities is vividly presented, analyzed and discussed. STUDY FINDINGS Based on the observation that took place as part of the field work for the study, there were many activities that were identified as part of the use of Twitter among participants. Based on these activities observed among different participants, a decoding was done which resulted in a 14 activities and they form the sequential activity order. The coding was done mainly by sampling the different activities that participants engage in while using Twitter. After doing this, activities that were recurring among two or more users were crossed out. This process made it possible to land on 14 major or key activities that form part of the regular browsing activity of users of Twitter as social activity of using Twitter in their everyday lives. Having identified the key activities, the ethnographer went ahead to unpack those activities and trying to find the work practices that were organised under each key activity. The reason for doing this was that it was not all participants that performed exactly the same task under the key activities. There were actually some participants who did not perform some of the activities at all. Breaking the key activities down into work practices was therefore important in understanding what the users of Twitter were engaged in as part of their everyday life. Such as a breakdown was also part of the structured analytic approach that was selected by the ethnographer. By breaking the key activities, it became easier to interpret the activities that participants performed so that any decision making could be based on the findings. In the next two sections, the key activities and work practices are presented along with an interpretation of what each of them means to participants. Key Activities Uncovered by Study 1. Having an account and logging in. 2. Reviewing messages. 3. Reading messages. 4. Replying to messages. 5. Finding who is following you or favorite you. 6. Finding who mentioned you in a tweet or replied to your tweets. 7. Following other people and favoring other people. 8. Searching for people and topics. 9. Grouping users and joining a group. 10. Creating a new topic. 11. Locating events and news. 12. Editing and maintaining the user profile. 13. Reading and viewing others’ tweets. 14. Tweeting and retweeting . Work Practices under various Activities Having an account and logging in The need to have an account and log in to begin using Twitter services was observed to be part of the key activities of all 5 participants involved in the study. There was however one participant who admitted to sharing a common account with his partner at home. This participant however had a personal account. This means that even though the need to have an account is key, accounts do not always have to be personal accounts. One participant also indicated that it is not every time that he logged in before using Twitter, especially when using his own laptop. Reviewing messages It was observed that reviewing of message was an activity that all 5 participants performed at one point in time or the other. The ethnographer was however very curious about how important the reviewing of messages was to participants and so observed the number of participants who reviewed messages as the very first activity after logging in. The figure below presents data in this direction. From the pie chart, it can be said that the act of reviewing messages happened as the first thing that majority of participants did. There was however one participant who did not review messages found in the in-box at all. For those that reviewed messages however, reviewing was done in a very passive manner; require nothing more than scanning through the messages as depicted in the appendix. Reading messages Among the 4 participants that reviewed their messages, reading was an automatic part of their activity. It was observed that all 4 participants read the message by focusing on the content of the message. This was done by either moving through the messages with the cursor of the mouse or by using the finger. As part of reading the messages, it was found that there were moments that particular messages came with video links, article links, images, locations and so on as shown in the appendix. 3 out of 4 participants were seen to have such follow up links. Out of the three, 2 followed up the links whiles 1 did not follow up the link. The implication is that those that follow up the link are very active readers of messages who want to be part of every experience that their messages present. Participants indicated that if they had an avenue of engaging in instant messaging or video messaging, it would get them more interactive and active than passive. Replying to messages It was observed that 3 participants replied to messages and 1 participant did not reply. The notion that this readily gives is that using of Twitter is an interactive activity that involves both receptive and productive skills [1]. By conducting the fieldworks, the participant who did not reply to the messages indicated that he did not reply because he did not find the message to be interrogative. This means that the message did not pose a question or notice that needed to be replied to. The 3 that replied their messages however indicated that they replied because they wanted the senders to know they have received them and that their communication is very important to them. Finding who is following you or favoring you The study showed that the practice of being followed or favored in Twitter was very important for participants. This is because all 5 participants checked the interactions button underneath the ‘Notifications’ set to see if there was someone following them. Once this was noticed, the ethnographer questioned them about how important it was for them to be followed by new people. The responses from participants are presented below. The results show that 3 participants were very delighted to see that they were being followed whiles 2 felt just delighted and there was none that did not express any feeling or felt it depressing to be followed. This expresses how important it was for the participants to have a social connection with other people. This is because after finding out who was following them, they viewed their profile and kept the social interaction going. Finding who mentioned you in a tweet or replied to your tweets Apart from the following button, 3 out of 5 participants were observed to have checked the mentions button underneath the ‘Notifications’ set. This was done to find out who mentioned them in tweets or replied to their tweets. 2 out of 3 were observed to have been mentioned. The 3 were asked how it meant to them to have been mentioned and they explained that they felt personally part of the social network because it meant they had been addressed personally. It also helped them to be in check of themselves as they were able to know what others opined about their tweets. 1 participant pointed out that it helps her to feel important because it means she has become the center of discussion. Following other people and favoring other people As part of the ethnographic study, the ethnographer was concerned about knowing the attitude of users of Twitter towards other people and how differently they behaved towards themselves. This activity that dealt with following other people and favoring other people made the ethnographer get the needed result about such attitudes here. This is because of the 5 participants, only 2 followed other people and favored other people, even though they all felt delighted in one way or the other to know that they had been followed. This reveals that people have an individualistic attitude towards the use of Twitter and social media, where their major focus is themselves and not others. Searching for people and topics It was observed that instead of following and favoring other people, participants rather preferred to search for people and topic. They did this by either entering person’s name (maybe using the first and last name) or the person’s user name preceded by @. This was done among 3 out of 5 of the participants. Most users when they want to get some info about any topic they type the name in the search engine preceded by #, topic such sports, TV shows, music, politics, etc. They also been interviewed after been seen searching about topics and people of why they would search for people and topics instead of following people, 1 participant said that he followed celebrities and stars and to know what was up with them. He did not however find it useful following them because these people did not want anything from him. This shows how one-sided the practice of using Twitter can be for some users. Grouping users and joining a group. Only 2 out of 5 participants were seen engaging in group user activities. This made the ethnographer curious to know from the others why they did not seem interested in this. The responses produced by these people pointed to two major issues, which are privacy and censorship issues. 2 people indicated that even though the grouping users had privacy options, they felt that their privacy was not safe once they joined such groups. 1 person also indicated that she could not control the content of materials that are produced and circulated in such groups and so a reason they would not join. The issue of using Twitter either as a personal or a group social networking tool is therefore a valid topic of discussion. But for those that kept groups, it was noted that they group some users for the reason of exchanging and keeping up with a particular topic theme such as university students, company workers, relatives, etc. Creating a new topic The observation revealed that the creation of new topic was one of the most enjoyed processes of Twitter users. This is because 4 out of 5 users created one topic or the other during the time that they were observed. The field work from the participants showed that they created topics as a way to categorizing messages and tweets that are of relevance to them. The users created topic by entering hashtag (#) before a word. Once this was done, a topic will be created. In single tweets, there were cases where users had more than one topic created which their tweets might be suit to seen and discussed in more than one topic. The creation of topic according to the participants was a way of starting discussions. This aided them to be followed by others who are interested in their topics. Locating events and news. One other major activity that users of Twitter who were observed were seen to engage in was the location of events and news. This was observed to be done mainly among celebrities and stars that the users adored. In an informal interview with one of the participants, it was actually revealed that locating events and news was one of the major reasons he was always on Twitter. He admitted to not attending the events that he located but wanted to keep himself updated. A similar thing was said by two other users who located news and events. They said they used Twitter to locate events and news as a way of keeping themselves informed and updated with current issues. Also, users had the opportunity to locate events and news either locally by choosing from the system preference to show events that users might care about based on their location or based on what their followers care about. Editing and maintaining the user profile The profile of users is a unique means by which they are located by their social network, made up of family and friends. The profiles also gave an external image of the users to other users of Twitter, who followed them or viewed their profile. Because of this, users were observed to be constantly editing and maintaining their user profile. In the informal interview, 2 participants revealed that they constantly edited and maintained their user profile to them the profiles up to date with what was happening in their lives. Each of the 5 users was asked how often they edited and maintained their user profiles. The following results came out. From the results, it will be noted that changing of user profile happened once a while in majority of the users. There was 1 participant each that almost always edited and hardly edited respectively. There was no one who did not change at all. Reading and viewing others’ tweets Prior review of literature had indicated that in the use of Twitter, there are generally passive and active actions regarding their activities. The reading and viewing of other people’s tweets was seen as one of the most passive actions that were observed in participants. This is because in most of those cases and instances that they were reading and viewing other people’s tweets, they sat back quietly and went through the lines without taking much action. Using the informal interview was the best way to find out about this activity, which showed that there were preferences for the reading of tweets and that they would mostly reply to friends, people in the same list, favorite users’ tweets and tweets about topics that interested them most. Tweeting and retweeting Tweeting and retweeting was observed to be a combination of passive and active actions. This is because tweeting happened while reading someone’s tweet, which is a passive action. The act of tweeting and retweeting in itself was however an active action. Tweeting and retweeting were done for several purposes, including the need to notify someone of something. It was also used as a way of replying to something that the users had been mentioned in. it was also observed that some participants used it to make complains and including hashtag of the things they complained about. Generally, this was a very interactive moment when users got as close to their social network as possible. For instance they made jokes of other friends, told friends about what is happening in their lives, using photos and status, and many more. Throughout the activities that have been presented above, there are five major work practices that can be discussed as part of the meaning of the use of Tweeter in the everyday lives of the participants. The first of these is the practice of showing their social network, made up of friends and family that they cared. As part of the findings it was noted that one of the major reason participants were boarded about replying as many messages as they read as possible was because they wanted the senders to know that their communication is very important to them. This means that Tweeting also is a means of keeping relationships very healthy and signalling to people how important they mean to us. The second practice has to do with the showing of appreciation to their social network. This is because it was noted as part of the activities that participants constantly looked for people who were following them and responded to these people.by responding to people who follow you, it is a way of showing appreciation to them. The third practice shows that there is a high sense of individualism and eccentricity associated with the use of Twitter. This is because even though users were constantly happy to know that they were being followed by others and that their tweets have been responded to, they hardly reciprocated this for others. On the topic of individualism, it was noted that individualism promoted selfishness in any social network and was therefore not a good way by which people could get along well with each other [2]. Arguing from this observation, it can be said that the use of Tweet makes social connection somewhat one-sided and defeats the sense of cohesive living as it prevails in a typical social setting where people meet and get along physically. The fourth work practice that can be mentioned is the issue of limiting the use of Tweeter either as a personal or group social networking tool. This is because for most participants, they indicated that they wanted to keep a low key while using Tweeter. It is for this reason that such people would not want to join any groups on the social media network. It can be said therefore that using Tweeter can best serve as a personal interactive tool rather than using it for organisational based purposes such as disseminating workplace announcement and information through this media. This is because group activity is not the style of most users. Finally, the practice of information seeking stands out among the activities. IMPLICATIONS FOR DESIGN Having come this far with the coursework and its discussions, there are some important implications that can be made out of all that has been done for systems designers. In the first place, the issue of adaptation in social media networking remains a very crucial part of users of Twitter and other social media networks. It remains a fact that Twitter is a highly adapted website where users have a lot of personalised preferences. As the social interactive needs of people continue by the day, there are a lot more ways that they would want to get along with their friends and loved ones more easily. For instance inculcating instant messaging adaptations at no extra cost for users would be a highly enhanced component of the design of the social network. These instant messaging platforms could come as independent messenger applications that will not require users to log into the Twitter website before they can get connected. Issues of live video chat without the use of external webcam enabled capacities are also a major issue with system design as its absence limits social connectivity. The issue of privacy continues to remain paramount in the system design and a major concern for users of Twitter, as the findings of the study has showed. Up to date, Twitter remains one of the most open and freely accessible social networks where virtually anybody at all can follow someone without seeking any prior permission from the one being followed. Criticisms of weak security leading to spam activities and the account of people being used wrongly continue to go on [3]. System designers must therefore be boarded about this all important issue of security and privacy, where there can be sufficient protection of the accounts of users as well as their privacy. Privacy settings must have safer options than there are now. Perhaps, it is time for system designers to consider, for their individual works, the use of more trustworthy and safe security options such as biometric information for accessing such websites as social network sites, where there is always an abundance of personal information. Lastly, the findings and discussion give system designers an urge to take up the issue of censorship very seriously, where there systems are meant for such public and generalised use as social networking. Even though one may argue that there should be some level of parental control and guidance on the use of the internet in general, it remains a fact that the degree to which the internet has become so accessible and portable means that there is very little that any parent or guardian can do to ensure total and absolute control. Where there is censorship of context by system designers and website hosts for such kinds of websites as social networking sites, there will be much confidence among the public to use as a family friendly website. Until now, system designers have done very little to differentiate adult websites from general website, including social networking sites, which are expected to be public and general with no major concerns about uncensored content. References Althaus, S. L., and Tewksbury, D. Patterns of Internet and traditional media use in a networked community. Political Communication 17: pp. 21-45. 2010 Atkins, C. K. Anticipated communication and mass media information-seeking. Public Opinion Quarterly Vol. 36, no.2: pp. 188-199. 2013 Baran, S. J., and Davis, D. K. Mass Communication Theory: Foundations, Ferment, and Future. 3d ed. Wadsworth: Ontario. 2013 Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. and Lowe, A. Management Research: An Introduction. London: Sage. 2002 Ghauri, P. and Gronhaung, K. Research Methods in Business Studies: A Practical Guide. Financial Times Prentice Hall: London 2002 Gill, J. and Johnson, P. Research Methods for Managers. Paul Chapman: London Schvaneveldt, J. and Adams, G. (2011) Understanding Research Methods. Longman: New York. 2007 Appendices Appendix A Observation Guide 1. What is participant doing on the Tweeter page at the time? 2. How long has this activity taken place? 3. Is the activity a passive one or an active one? 4. Is there a direct follow up activity to what is being performed? 5. What visible facial and body expressions are accompanying the activity that is taking place? Appendix B Informal interview Guide 1. Do you always go through the log in process? 2. How often do you review and read your messages? 3. What types of messages will you reply to and which ones will you ignore? 4. How do you feel when you find that someone is following or favouring you? 5. Why is it important for you to find out that someone mentioned you in a tweet or replied your tweet? 6. Is the practice of following others something you normally do? 7. Kindly give reason to your answer in (6) 8. What kinds of people and topics do you search for? 9. What is your opinion about joining a group? 10. Do you feel your privacy is threatened by joining a group? 11. What issues do you have with censorship on contents posted on Tweeter? 12. Why do you ever create new topics? 13. Why do you locate events and news? 14. Do you attend events and news you locate? 15. How often do you edit your profile? Appendix C Tweeter Pages of some participants, showing ongoing activity on the page as given in the project. A picture showing that there are more followers than those being followed A picture showing some events and news located by a user A picture showing an active activity involving the viewing and exchange of pictures Picture showing the use of harshtag in creating a topic A picture showing a passive activity of reading tweets Read More