Scientists are not fundamentally different from other humans in that they follow trends - be they real or perceived. A (more or less recent) trend is Web 2.0, community-driven websites like Facebook, MySpace and the plethora of country-specific look-alikes. So scientists from the University of Zurich took a look at this.
They were fascinated, and they designed a study (German). That's when it all went pear-shaped.
The psychologists Anett Cepela and Bertold Meyer were not writing a theoretically well-founded criticism on the pre-shaped social interactions of social networking sites, they wanted to look at something more fundamental: What people use Facebook and why? Unfortunately, their efforts failed to provide any meaningful results.
Based on a study from 2007 by scientists of the Michigan State University (not referenced in the university's announcement), that found users of social networks are generally more satisfied and happier because of their higher social commitment, Cepela and Meyer designed an online-questionnaire with items on personality and social network usage that was completed by 681 participants, 573 of which used Facebook, and 335 used at least one additional social networking site. The rate of male (336) and female (345) participants was almost identical, the average number of "friends" claimed via their most-used social network was 187 (no idea whether this is arithmetical, median or mode[1]).
From this data, they tried to find agreements between the Web 2.0-usage and the so called "Big Five" personality traits, a model based on five dimensions of personality: Openness to Experience, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, and Neuroticism.
The results? Meyer is quoted:
If Extraversion as a dimension of personality is accounted for, it can be seen that extroverted people can be found more often on Facebook and are quite satisfied with it. [...] [But,] if there was no Facebook, extroverted people would find other ways to communicate.
Words of wisdom, eh?
Turning our attention to the 62 non-users of social networks, at least Meyer cautions against over-generalisation, but nevertheless tells us that non-users rank high on the Conscientiousness-scale. And, since "other studies" (again, not referenced in the PR-blurb) found a high correlation between Conscientiousness and job-related success, that, according to Meyer, inevitably means that
people who are not participating in social networks are more conscientious and enjoy a higher rate of success in their professional careers.
Good thing nobody told them of social networks founded explicitly for furthering your career, like XING.
But, as usual with studies like this, there is a teeny qualifier at the end, just so the authors don't have to deal with pesky things like "scientific thoroughness" or "accountability":
The non-users are also older on average than the Facebook-users, which could play a role in these results. Further studies are to be conducted.
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Disclaimer:
The study itself does not seem to be available online (no reference even on Meyer's university homepage; Cepela doesn't even have such a page), nor is it referenced in the university's PR-piece. If anyone can give me direct access to it, that would be much appreciated.
Footnotes:
[1] cf. Darrell Huff: How to Lie with Statistics, 1993, pp. 27 - 36.
History only repeats itself if one doesn't listen the first time.
http://layscience.net/trackback/775
Maybe people who are more conscientious and more succesful in their jobs have less time to piss around with facebook?
Maybe. But that's no the point. The point is that this is all pretty much unscientific drivel, apparently without much basis in fact. It's more of a "we designed a questionnaire, so we have to publish SOMETHING", regardless of fact, sense or other considerations. Oh, and it's apparently not even published, so nobody can fact-check it in-depth. Great way to start myths that are seen as "scientific fact" and spook around newspapers and the interwebs for years.
Not what I want in my science.
History only repeats itself if one doesn't listen the first time.
PJ wrote: "Maybe people who are more conscientious and more succesful in their jobs have less time to piss around with facebook?"
Oi! Who are you calling unconscientious!
Martin is the editor of layscience.net.
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Ok, to clarify: If they had conducted this study and then, afterwards, told the world "people on Facebook are more extroverted then those who are not" the world would have shrugged and said "well, duuuuuuuh", and maybe I had mumbled something about "weak methodology", "small and self-selecting sample group" and "maybe people who answer online surveys are more extroverted". That would have been fine.
But they didn't want to stick with the obvious, and, therefore, took their conclusions into the realm of make-a-guess That isn't as fine. Also, I still can't find the freaking paper itself. They don't even give the title as far as I can see.
History only repeats itself if one doesn't listen the first time.
The whole point of association-type epidemiology-style studies is to acknowledge that association isn't causation and then to blithly assume that it is for the rest of the paper, and, most importantly, for the press release and Daily Mail article.