Who Acquires Friends Through Social Media and Why? "Rich Get Richer" Versus "Seek and Ye Shall Find"

There is an ongoing debate, not just among academics but in popular culture, about whether social media can expand people's social networks, and whether online friends can be "real" friends. The debate refuses to die. This paper addresses this question subjectively, from the point of view of the user, and examines predictors of acquiring new friends through social media use. This is a multi-method study with quantitative (n=617) and qualitative sections. Some previous studies have found a "rich-get-richer" effect where people who are socially active offline benefit most from online interactions. This paper examines whether online social ties become real friends subject to a selffulfilling prophecy: those who do not believe in online friendships are not likely to make such connections. I compare the "Rich Get Richer" and "Seek and Ye Shall Find" models by examining relationships between the amount of offline socializing, amount of online soc...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: ICWSM
• Authors: Zeynep Tufekci
• Keywords: ICWSM 2010, Internet Technology, Online, Social, Social Media