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Tobak and Sheng

Page history last edited by ted.coopman@... 11 years, 11 months ago

Topic: Facebook Games

 

Research Question:  What are the uses and gratifications users get from playing games on Facebook?

 

How you gathered your data, challenges you faced, things you learned about research:

For this project, we decided to find out the uses and gratifications users get from playing games on Facebook.  We went about doing this by creating an event page on Facebook.  Between 3/25/12 – 4/1/12 we sent out and collected our surveys.  Here we invited over 1600 people.  This event shared a link and description of our survey.  After collecting over 80 surveys out of the 1600 people, we were then able to set up interviews with a few of our more promising candidates.  We conducted these interviews between 4/1/12 – 4/6/12.  After collecting all of the data from our interviews and surveys we then started coding.  Once we started coding, we broke it down into several categories and coding items.  These preliminary categories were friendship dimension, information dimension, connection dimension. Our specific coding items were high broadcasters, high communicators, and high interaction. This project was an interesting but difficult one.  At first we had trouble with our original topic on how businesses use Yelp to bring business in as well as fix any issues users have posted about them. We definitely struggled a bit with the coding scheme.  We had trouble creating categories that many people fit under, because the spread amongst users was too wide.  It was also difficult to find users that gave us legitimate responses to our survey.  Another issue we struggled with, was to find a corresponding time to meet with our interviewees, especially after they felt they have already done their part by answering our survey.

 

Discussion

Day, Dong, & Urista (2009) suggest that communication between people required cooperation between parties to either be in a place or access some sort of media channel at the same time. What we found from our data is that Facebook games act as a platform for users to communicate with each other. Facebook games have an interactive user interface that allows users to communicate instantly or even leave messages that users will receive once logged on. From our findings we have found that majority of users that play Facebook games are appreciative of the fact that there is a chat option. Our study shows us that over 90% of Facebook gamers believe that Facebook games actually help mediate conversation.  One of our interviewees, Andy Lee stated that game play often created topics of conversation in person. He stated that he used Facebook games as a means of connecting with people that he doesn’t often see. From our data we could see that many gamers used Facebook game play as a way to break the ice in face to face conversation.

 

In the study conducted by Hou (2011), the author found that many people today live very isolated lives and use SNS as a means to communicate. The author discovered that not only are people using SNS to communicate, but play games due to addiction. What we have found is that people who use SNS can be categorized into 3 categories, high broadcasters, high communicators, and high interactions. From our study we have found that majority of people who do not play Facebook games are more likely to have mild social deviance, and therefore, high communicators. These people may have a lot of “friends” according to Facebook, and from time to time interact with friends, but are more passive when it comes to communication. Majority of SNS users that play games fall under either high broadcaster or high interaction. High Broadcasters tend to be users that are outgoing, risk takers, or people that lack quality interaction. For example, survey 51 stated that the interviewee’s grandmother played “Farmville,” an interactive game on Facebook that utilizes the user’s social network, and often created new “friends” through game play.

 

In a study by Jennifer Whitson, Facebook style gaming involves the use of its social graph, which allows users to interact with people already in their social network. By utilizing Facebook’s method for social interaction, visionaries hope that Social Change Games will promote users to have a greater impact on society because the users become accountable when linking their real identity to social change games. (Dormann & Whitson, 2011) Our findings contradicted these results.  We found our users not accountable when linking their real identity to social change games, but we found them to be only interested in rekindling friendships, and that social games have no influence on their behaviors when it comes to social change.  They just play these games to kill time when they are bored or to make new friends. One of the many surveyors and interviewees such as Brandon Wong stated that he only plays these games when he is bored before class and during gaps.

 

A study was conducted in order to see if physical proximity and mutual familiarity cause bonding beyond the game. The study found that online games that apply physical proximity and mutual familiarity forms a social capital that helps with potential negative effects of gaming by developing offline relationships. (Juechems, Reinecke, & Trepte, 2011) This article pertains to our research because it shows that users can benefit from the social effects of gaming. One of our interviewees, Dominique Temorres stated that she likes to rekindle old friendships as well as chat & play games with friends in other time zones.  This way when playing games such as Farmville, she can give a gift or leave a message on her friend’s farms for them to read when they wake up. Gift giving would fall under reciprocity. 

 

In a study conducted amongst East Coast college students on their internet usage, they theorize that increase usage of the internet as a communication tool has changed the way people interact. (Raacke & Raacke, 2008) They created this study to determine why people use these SNS, what the characteristics of college students who use these sites, and their uses and gratifications.  The study found that people primarily use these SNS to keep in touch with friends both old and new, to post and look at pictures, and to make new friends.  Our research was on point with this study.  A majority of our surveys and interviews all stated users use SNS to keep in touch with friends, and to rekindle old friendships, as well as look at pictures and make new friends.  This study also states that users check these SNS constantly several times a day.  Our research also showed the same findings.  Our results showed that most users check their Facebook at least 2-5 times a day.  Other users showed being logged on all day.  Most of the people we surveyed and interviewed agreed they checked several times a day because they generally had over 200 friends and it would take some time to go through all of their friend’s SNS.

 

Raacke (2010) suggested that there were 3 dimensions for use of SNS, first being the information dimension, friendship dimension, and last the dimension. Our preliminary data coding was based off Raacke’s dimensions, but as we went further in depth we began to notice that information dimension was unimportant. From our data we found that friendship dimension and connection dimension encompassed all gamers. One interviewee, Sita Menon, stated that often times her and her friends would discuss and play Facebook games face to face. She stated that Facebook games helps her reconnect with old friends, and keep up to date with close friends. Our data shows that Facebook games promote 2 important aspects, first being that users play games in order to keep in touch with friends, and secondly, users make new connections through gaming. We have dissected those 2 dimensions into 3 types of users, high broadcasters, high communicators, and high interaction. From the data we gathered we have determined that people play Facebook games as a coping strategy, to relieve boredom, engage in reciprocity, or achieve common ground.

 

*1) Day, D. K. , & Dong, Q. , & Urista, A. M. (2009). Explaining why young adults use Myspace and

Facebook through uses and gratifications theory. Human Communication, 12(2), 216-229. Retrieved

from http://www.uab.edu/Communicationstudies/humancommunication/merge.pdf#page=98

 

*2) Dormann, C. , & Whitson, J. R. (2011). Social gaming for change: Facebook unleashed. First

Monday. 16(10), Retrieved fromhttp://www.uic.edu/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3578/3058

 

*3) Hou, J. (2011). Uses and gratifications of social games: Blending social networking and game play.

First Monday. 16(7), Retrieved fromhttp://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3517/3020

 

*4) Juechems, K. , & Reinecke, L. , & Trepte, S. (2011). The social side of gaming: How playing online computer games creates online and offline social support. Computers in Human Behavior. 28(3), 832-839.

 

*5) Raacke, J. B. , & Raacke, J. (2008). MySpace and Facebook: Applying the uses and gratifications theory to exploring friend-networking sites. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 11(2), 169-174. doi: 10.1089/cpb.2007.005

 

*6) Raacke, J. B. , & Raacke, J. (2010). MySpace and Facebook: Identifying dimensions of uses and gratifications for friend networking sites. Individual Differences Research, 8(1), 27-33.

 

 

Comments (16)

Tania Berlinski said

at 5:04 pm on Apr 23, 2012

1. Did you find any significant differences in the use or gratifications of the users based on age?
2. Besides the difficulty in getting information for your previous topic, why did you choose to study the uses/gratification of playing games on Facebook?
3. You listed "coping strategy" as reason that people play Facebook games. What are they using the games to cope with?
4. Does the type of game played have any affect on the reason for playing (coping, relieving boredom, etc.)?

-Tania Berlinski

Tyler Gallau said

at 12:18 pm on Apr 24, 2012

1. What lead you to study playing games on Facebook? Do both of you play games on Facebook?
2. Was a certain game played more for those who are older/younger?
3. Do you think playing games affects one's social life?
4. Since you struggled with your coding scheme do you think it would have helped to fine tune your surveys?

-Tyler Gallau

Jose Molina said

at 12:27 am on Apr 25, 2012

- Why do you think the differences in the way people interact through games are important?
- What do you think causes the addiction on the individuals towards these games on Facebook?
- Why was the information dimension unimportant with the results of your research?
- Do you think that playing games on Facebook leads to another effect rather than just connection with friends, interaction, and coping with boredom?

--Jose Molina

Emily Mello said

at 1:27 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. What made you create an event holding your data rather then just put it as your status as many others did on their SNS?
2. Why the topic or curiousity of game playing on Facebook?
3. What or really how do the game players who have all the "friends" define the term friend?
4.How do the players achieve common ground?

dannah.sanchez said

at 2:59 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. What percentage of your participants made Facebook friends through a game?
2. Did you study a specific game?
3. What other variables did you find (that you didn't expect to come up) while coding?
4. How often did the participants log into Facebook to play a game and are they consistent?

Sofia Cruz said

at 7:48 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. Do you guys play facebook games a lot in your spare time?
2. Were you guys able to differentiate from a person who play a game once and the dedicated "gamers"- did they have different perspectives?
3. Was it easy to find people who play facebook games since you promoted your survey via facebook-or did you have a lot of people who use facebook for other thing besides gaming?
4. Do you believe your results about facebook games would be similar to the reasons why people play games on their SmartPhone Apps?
-Sofia

maxbunag@gmail.com said

at 9:45 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. What was the genesis for this topic in the first place?
2. Do you think the topic is cross-platform?
3. Was there one specific game that you guys focused in on?
4. Do you think the people surveyed or effected by this study are all active in SNS just to play games?

Mark Bateman said

at 10:19 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. How did this topic idea come to you guys?
2. Did you only get 80 responses out of the 1600 you sent out or did you trim it down to the best ones?
3. Do you think people playing different Facebook games would answer the survey questions differently?
4. Is age a factor in who plays these games?

Laurel Marshall said

at 10:47 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. How do people find social satisfaction by game playing?
2. What types of Facebook games were studied?
3. Do specific games attract a certain type of personality? Were you able to get enough data to analyse that?
4. What types of questions did you ask in your interviews?

**Laurel Marshall

Chris Valdez said

at 11:30 pm on Apr 25, 2012

1. What was the most popular game that was played?
2. How did playing games affect their daily lives?
3. What was the average age of these gamers?
4. What was the most consistent connection you found within the gamers?

Michael Wilkerson said

at 7:45 am on Apr 26, 2012

1. Do you two also play Facebook games yourselves?
2. What games were studied in this?
3. How many surveys did you end up receiving?
4. What kind of questions did you ask in the interviews?

Adrienne Goguen said

at 9:00 am on Apr 26, 2012

1. What lead you to ask this question? Do you play games on Facebook? Do your friends play games on Facebook?
2. Which games were the main focus of your research? Did you incorporate all Facebook games? How did you decide which to choose?
3. What is the satisfaction from playing the games? Is it mutual throughout the people you studied?
4. Did age or grade level have anything to do with the results?

valentina berry said

at 9:10 am on Apr 26, 2012

1. Do you play games on Facebook?
2. What were the types of games that you studied?
3. Did you study a certain age group or what it more of a broad spectrum?
4. Did you find that people were more into solely one game? or had a few that they played regularly?

Alex Torres said

at 10:00 am on Apr 26, 2012

Tobak and Sheng

1. Do you believe that your analysis could have change if more demographic data have been collected?
2. What are the most played games?
3. On average how long does a user play games on FB?
4. What games do you recommend or don’t recommend? Why?

matt.collins209@... said

at 10:30 am on Apr 26, 2012

1) What game was the most popular to play?
2) Did age reflect who played games more?
3) Do they sign up for SNS to play games or to socialize?
4) What are the outcomes of playing a game?

Kim Calisesi said

at 11:40 am on Apr 26, 2012

1) Do you think the amount of time spent playing games has an affect on one’s social life?
2) Was it difficult to find participants in your survey that specifically played games on Facebook?
3) How do people find gratification in game playing?
4) What was the most common age of these gamers?

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