A Research On How Social Networking - 2143 Words

Many people worldwide are affiliated with social networks everyday. Keith Wilcox and Andrew Stephan’s did a research on how social networking, particularly Facebook, was used to boost one’s self esteem with tie strengths. Tie strength can be defined as strong or weak. Strong ties can be described as the close connection to their friends, while weak ties are considered their â€Å"acquaintances that are distant friends† (Wilcox Stephan, 2013, p. 92). Wilcox is an assistant professor at Columbia University, teaching marketing. While Stephen, â€Å"is [an] assistant professor of business administration and Katz Fellow in marketing at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business† (Wilcox Stephan, 2013, p.90). The Journal of Consumer Research†¦show more content†¦Wilcox and Stephan’s hypothesis propose that the â€Å"enhanced self-esteem from browsing a social network will momentarily lower self-control, leading people to display less self- control after browsing a social network compared to those who did not browse a social network† (Wilcox Stephan, 2013, p.92). Since people care more about their image to strong ties, this effect will be on people who are focused on strong ties while browsing the social network. Wilcox and Stephan â€Å"expect social network use to have little effect on the self-control of those focused on weak ties while browsing a social network† (2013, p.92). This paper will help one understand their motives that take place while social networking. Five studies were done through out this paper, but only three were very supportive of their theory. The first study focused on proving â€Å"social networking use increases self esteem primarily for those focused on strong ties while browsing the network† (Wilcox Stephan, 2013, p. 93). They expected that those focused on strong ties would have a positive impact on self-esteem, but what they did not expect was the same for weak tie s as well. The methodology for this was done by design, survey and experimentation. They took 100 random US participants and put them into four different groups. The groups were â€Å"browsing: Facebook versus no Facebook† (Wilcox % Stephan, 2013,