Eric Gilbert | Karrie Karahalios | Christian Sandvig | University of Illinois

THE NETWORK IN THE GARDEN

Do rural and urban people use social media differently?

1. rural demographics2. brief history of rural telephony3. our quantitative study of rural social media

rural: towns with less than 2,500 people

U.S. Census Bureau

not connected to a metropolitan area

http://flickr.com/photos/9548969@N02/722111742 (used with permission)

Hundred, West VirginiaPopulation: 344U

UN Demographic Yearbook, 2003.U.S. Census Bureau Summary Files 1 & 3, 2000.

0 10 20 30 40 50

U.S.

World 50%

24%

Rural population

1. rural demographics2. brief history of rural telephony3. our quantitative study of rural social media

Pillow Talk, Universal Pictures, 1959.

Claude Fischer. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.

Claude Fischer. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.

Claude Fischer. America Calling: A Social History of the Telephone to 1940.

“Farmers as a class are troublesome customers to handle and are apt to have an exaggerated idea of their own rights. The bumptiousness of certain farmers can be overcome only by constant efforts to educate them …

Telephone industry executive, 1918(Fischer 96)

RELATED WORK

Falk: rural social capitalSociologia Ruralis, 2000

Larson & Baym: rural internet useUniversity of Kansas, Dept. of Communications, 2007

Relevant social media workAdamic, Baym, boyd, Donath, Ellison, Lampe, Golder, Hancock, Resnick, Terveen, Wellman, Whittaker, …

Do rural and urban people use social media differently?

3,000 MySpace public users340,000 online friendships200,000 interpersonal messages

OUR DATASET

built using ZipDecode by Fry and Heer.

every U.S. zipcode

built using ZipDecode by Fry and Heer.

every U.S. zipcode + our sample

0 500 1000 1500 2000

N

1661

1721

Rural

Urban0 10 20 30 40 50 60

R

U

MySpace ID

2.7M

54M

0 5 10 15 20 25

R

U

Age

22

240 2 4 6 8 10

R

U

Days since login

10

4

Mann-Whitney p < 0.001

demographics & usage

H5. a preference for strong ties over weak ties

H1. fewer friends and comments

H2. more women

H3. more private profiles

H4. closer friends

rural people will have …

H1. Rural users will have far fewer friends and comments than urban users.

Mann-Whitney p < 0.001

0 20 40 60 80 100 120

R

U

Friends

45

1040 20 40 60 80 100 120

R

U

Comments

118

40

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

R

U

Unique commenters

11

290 1 2 3 4 5

R

U

Reciprocal relationships

2

5

H1. fewer friends and comments

H2. Females will account for a greater proportion of ruralusers than urban users.

Chi-square p < 0.001

R

U

Gender distribution

48.5% male

59.4% male

51.5% female

40.6% female

H2. more women

Chi-square p = 0.011

R

U

Male friendships

35.5% male

38.6% male

64.5% female

61.4% female

R

U

Female friendships

42.5% male

43.7% male

57.5% female

56.3% female

Chi-square p > 0.05

H2. more women

H3. Rural users will set their profiles to private at higher rates than urban users.

Chi-square p < 0.001

Rural

Urban

Pro!le privacy

68.5% public

74.9% public

31.5% private

25.1%

H3. more private profiles

Chi-square p = 0.613Chi-square p < 0.001

R

U

Male pro!le privacy

78.7% public

77.4% public

21.3%

22.6%

R

U

Female pro!le privacy

60.8% public

73.0% public

39.2% private

27.0%

H3. more private profiles

H4. Rural users’ friends will live much closer than urban users’ friends.

Mann-Whitney p < 0.001

0 50 100 150 200 250

Rural

Urban

Median distance to friends

201.7 mi

88.8 mi

H4. closer friends

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1

0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000

Prob

abili

ty o

f a

stro

ng t

ie

Distance from strong tie (mi)

RuralUrban

P (friend > x) ! e!( x132.84 )0.441

R2 = 0.994

H5. Compared to urban users, rural users’ distribution of friends will preference strong ties over weak ties.

H5. a preference for strong ties over weak ties

H1. fewer friends and comments

H2. more women

H3. more private profiles

H4. closer friends

rural people will have …

CONCLUSIONS

Rural people use social media.

Rural and urban people use social media differently.Far fewer friends; friends much closer to home; more private profiles; more women

Rural people want to reach beyond their communities, but usually do not.

1. Build for incremental trust.

2. Introduce people.

DESIGN IMPLICATIONS

A rural perspective could shed new light on technology.

Eric Gilbert | Karrie Karahalios | Christian SandvigUniversity of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

BACKUP SLIDES

Salganik & Heckathorn. Sampling and Estimation in Hidden Populations Using Respondent-Driven Sampling.

SNOWBALL SAMPLING

sample point

Salganik & Heckathorn. Sampling and Estimation in Hidden Populations Using Respondent-Driven Sampling.

SNOWBALL SAMPLING

sample point