News sharing on the Facebook makes people smarter
Washington, 16Jan (IANS) ; Sharing news on the social media sites such as Facebook can help to get on top of it as well as stay connected with longer than people who indifferently read the news & scroll down, says researcher.
‘Sharing & discussing news content on the social media sites such as Facebook can actually drive a greater involvement with the news & information,’ said S. Shyam Sundar who is a professor of communications & codirector of media effects a research laboratory at the Pennsylvania State University.
There seems to be growing concern that the young people might be becoming more detached, particularly from the mainstream media sources & be more out of touch.
For this reason, a researcher studied whether the way Facebook user’s shared links to the news stories with their friends exaggerated how involved they remained with stories.
Around 265 active Facebook users with median of four hundred friends each took part in this study.
Researchers checked the posts as well as reactions to their posts.
One of main findings of this study is that an engagement in news stories through the social media necessitates discussion with friends on site.
Increased in involvement depends on the valuable feedback from the friends.
‘Feedback from the friends appears to drive the connection,’ said Anne Oeldorf Hirsch who is an assistant professor of communication from the University of Connecticut.
How users perceive feedback is also an important.
Simply receiving likes or superficial comments from lot of friends is not sufficient.
‘Feedback have to to be apparent as applicable, thoughtful & engaging, in order to make the Facebook users feel like they are involved in story and influential in their network,’ Sundar said.
By sharing the news of user’s interest to their friends & engaging them, the users gather the benefits of a greater interest & involvement in that content themselves.
‘Those sharing stories also gain sense of an influence which could be drive them to become an opinion leaders in their networks,’ the authors said.
Photo credit: Carla Ivette Yashiro / Foter / CC BY-NC-ND
Users who asked the questions rather than ones who just posted material or made statement about the content significantly an increased involvement with the information, according to researchers.
The findings were detailed in an upcoming problem of journal Computers in Human Behaviour.
