SOCIAL MEDIA USAGE AND WORK VALUES:THE EXAMPLE OF FACEBOOK IN TAIWAN

JULIA YING-CHAO LIN

Tainan University of TechnologyANGELINA NHAT HANH LE

Nong Lam University and National Central UniversitySHADAB KHALIL AND JULIAN MING-SUNG CHENG

National Central University

Social media, especially social networking, are rapidly becoming very popular online activities among people all over the world. The use of online media is causing several workplace-related problems. Therefore, in this study we investigated the associations between social media usage behavior, personal background, and work values. Using office workers for the research sample and Facebook as the social medium for investigation, an exploratory factor analysis was conducted to dimensionalize the constructs of social media usage behavior and work values. The results of bivariate correlation suggest that personal background and social media usage behavior are correlated and social media usage behavior and work values are partially correlated.

Keywords: social media, social networking, work values, Facebook.

With the development of Web 2.0, the use of online social media has become an accepted part of our lives (Chapman, 2009). Social media usage has turned into a people’s movement and is one of the fastest growing trends (Benevenuto, Rodrigues, Cha, & Almeida, 2009). Social media includes web-based platforms such as collaborative projects, blogs, content communities, social networking

SOCIAL BEHAVIOR AND PERSONALITY, 2012, 40(2), 195-200© Society for Personality Researchhttp://dx.doi.org/10.2224/sbp.2012.40.2.195

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Julia Ying-Chao Lin, Department of Living Science, Tainan University of Technology; Angelina Nhat Hanh Le, Business Administration Division, Nong Lam University, and Department of Business Administration, National Central University; Shadab Khalil and Julian Ming-Sung Cheng, Department of Business Administration, National Central University.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Angelina Nhat Hanh Le, Department of Business Administration, National Central University, No. 300, Chung-Ta Rd., Chung-Li City, Taoyuan 32001, Taiwan, ROC. Email: lenhathanh@yahoo.com

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sites, virtual game worlds, and virtual communities (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010). Of these, the social networking website, Facebook, is the most popular (Prestipino, 2009).

According to its official news release in 2010 (www.facebook.com/press/info.php?timeline), Facebook’s global membership increased from 350 million to 500 million in a period of 7 months. This figure represents more than 7% of the total world population, with a user base twice as large as the world’s third most populous country. In June 2008, Facebook launched the Chinese Mandarin version of their website, but initially Facebook Taiwan was not very successful. However, the success of the Facebook game application “Happy Farm”, has made Facebook Taiwan one of the most popular social media (Lee, 2009), thus threatening other popular Taiwanese social media sites such as Yahoo Taiwan’s Wretch, pixnet.net (Su, 2010). A large number of people in Taiwan use Facebook for social communication and for playing “Happy Farm” during their work time (Lee, 2009). Because of this, numerous firms now do not allow their employees to use Facebook at work. There have been instances of workers losing their jobs for accessing Facebook during working hours (“No Facebook”, 2009). In Taiwan, social norms at work and Facebook usage behavior have created a dichotomous situation wherein the worker is not supposed to access Facebook at work but has an overwhelming desire to do so.

Research ObjectivesThere is growing evidence of the effect of social media usage, especially

Facebook, on attitude and behavior (www.xiongweixi.wikispaces.com/Happy+Farm). On this basis, we investigated the relationship between office workers’ Facebook usage behavior and their work values and the relationship between the personal background of the users of online social media, especially Facebook, and their Facebook usage behavior.

Literature Review

Usage Behavior in Social MediaUsage behavior refers to the behavior generated by the use of goods or the

consumption of services. In the current context, it signifies the use of social media, which has become an accepted part of our lives. Social media are tools for communication which are based on the concept of Web 2.0 and allow for the creation and exchange of user generated-content. Because of the intrinsic nature of humans, users are not likely to exhibit a single or simple behavior. Thus, the understanding of features of individual users’ behavioral patterns in social media is of immense importance (Maia, Almeida, & Almeida, 2008).

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The Social Networking Site: FacebookFacebook was founded in 2004 as an exclusive online student directory limited

to Harvard University students. Facebook later extended to all universities in the United States. In 2006, Facebook was made available for public use, and since then has witnessed exponential growth in membership worldwide. Facebook’s fundamental features include: Graffiti wall (wall), Market (marketplace), Poke, Status (status updates), News Feed, and Notifications. These functions enable interaction between friends. In addition, numerous other application programs exist, among which gaming is the most popular and frequently used (InsightXplorer, 2009).

As noted, the introduction of “Happy Farm” has led to an exponential growth in the numbers of Facebook users in Taiwan. The popularity of “Happy Farm” has encouraged a large number of software firms to develop new games in an attempt to attract Facebook users to spend more time “stuck” to the online social network. Facebook attracts users to spend a lot of time on the Internet and despite its friend-making and gaming activities, overuse of Facebook can result in a number of social problems affecting rest, relationships, and employment. In an attempt to tackle these problems the government of Taiwan banned civil servants from accessing Facebook while at work (“Taiwan bans civil servants from playing”, 2009).

Work ValuesWork values are a stable, intrinsic, psychological construct. According to

Nord, Brief, Atieh, and Doherty (1988), work values are what individuals seek to achieve through their work. Through participation in their work roles, individuals will feel satisfied by financial prosperity, altruism, the sense of achievement, and the sense of responsibility, thus enhancing their work values (Brown, 2002). Individuals’ work values are based on their prior experience, work char-acteristics, and targets they set themselves and the realization of those targets eventually satisfies them within a social setting.

Work values can be categorized into intrinsic, extrinsic, social, and power values (Schwartz, 1999). Intrinsic values include personal growth, autonomy, interest, and creativity. Extrinsic values comprise pay and security. Social values consist of contact with people and contribution to society. Power values comprise prestige, authority, and influence. Wang (2002) defined Taiwanese work values as two-fold: work purpose and the purpose of self-evaluation. The former includes internal rewards, externals rewards, care of family, peace, and collective interest; and work for the purpose of self-evaluation comprises an individual’s self-judgments about these characteristics such as him or her being kind, friendly, traditional, conservative, modern, and so on.

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Method

The questionnaire used in this study was composed of three sections: 9 questions about personal background, 24 questions about Facebook usage behavior, and 15 questions about work values. Data were collected in January 2010 in Tainan City, one of the major cities in South Taiwan. Research questionnaires were delivered randomly to office workers passing through the main entrance of 27 major office buildings in all six administrative districts of Tainan City. The working status and Facebook usage of potential respondents were established and their willingness to participate was confirmed. Of the 400 questionnaires distributed, 13 were unusable and hence 387 questionnaires were used in the final data analysis.

Among the 387 participants, 54% of the respondents were female, 58.7% were aged between 23 and 30 years, 82.4% were unmarried, and 83.7% worked in private domestic firms. Of the participants, 57.5% had used Facebook for at least 6 months, 78.6% used it while at home, and 59.9% used it for less than 2 hours daily and felt that this would not change in future. The biggest group of respondents (55.8%) used Facebook when they were bored, with the most frequently used function being gaming (60.2% of users).

Results

Exploratory Factor Analysis and Scale Reliability TestsWe used exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to dimensionalize the two research

constructs, of social media usage behavior (24 items) and work values (15 items). All items were pooled together and factor analyzed. A 5-dimension (common factor) structure was obtained for social media usage behavior and its cumulative explained variance approximated 59.07%. The five factors were participation experience, addiction level, emotional stress relief, negative role, and positive benefit. Their respective Cronbach’s values ranged from .689 to .812. For work values, a 2-dimension solution was extracted and its cumulative explained variance approximated 57.04%. Self-development and positive attitude were the terms given to the two extracted dimensions. Cronbach’s ranged from .831 to .869.

Facebook Usage Behavior and Personal Background Gender had no significant correlation with Facebook usage behavior. People

aged between 23 and 30 years had significantly greater participation experience compared with older age groups. Those people below the age of 22 years had significantly greater addiction levels and perceived greater positive benefits as compared with the older age group. Married workers with children had a significantly more negative role compared with single and married workers

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without children. In terms of contact time with Facebook, addiction level was greater for the participants who had used Facebook for less than six months. For the location of use, addiction level was greater for workers who used Facebook at the office compared with those who used it at home. The results for duration of use revealed that participation experience was greater for workers who used Facebook for between 2 and 4 hours and between 4 and 6 hours per day compared with those who used Facebook for less than 2 hours. Addiction level was greater for workers who used Facebook for between 4 and 6 hours compared with those who used Facebook for less than 4 hours. Emotional stress relief was greater for workers who used Facebook for more than 2 hours than for workers who used Facebook for less than 2 hours. Negative role was greater for workers who used Facebook for 6 hours or more compared with those who used Facebook for less than 6 hours. Positive benefit was significantly greater in workers who used Facebook for between 4 and 6 hours compared with those who used it for less than 4 hours.

Facebook Usage Behavior and Work Values The results indicate that Facebook usage behavior and office workers’ work

values were partially correlated. Among the five Facebook usage behavior dimensions, only participation experience had a positive correlation with both the work values dimensions, that is, self-development and positive attitude (.157, p < .01 and .124, p < .05, respectively). In addition, it was found that emotional stress relief and positive benefit were significantly associated only with the self-development dimension (.151, p < .01 and .206, p < .01, respectively). Addiction level and negative role did not correlate with any of the work values dimensions.

Discussion

In the current study we examined the associations of social media usage behavior with users’ personal background and work values. The results indicate that office workers with different demographic characteristics have different Facebook usage behavior patterns and that Facebook usage behaviors, to some extent, correlate with work values.

Although this study was grounded in a robust literature review, there are a few limitations that provide avenues for future research. As the study was based on data from a single city, data collection from a wider population could provide more insight into the studied phenomena. The current study was focused on the relationship between the Facebook usage of office workers and their work values. Future researchers of social media usage could also investigate the relationship between Facebook usage and other variables such as interpersonal relationships, social norms and perceived relevance to inherent needs, values, and interests

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of the individual. Research on other social media could also provide a better understanding of the effects of social media usage on a host of work-related variables. If differences were found to exist, comparison between the findings would provide the potential for the introduction of moderating effects. As the current study was based on a survey, it provides an immediate understanding of the issue, but the underlying mechanism of the studied relationships cannot be explained. A qualitative analysis of the issue could provide deeper insight into how social media usage affects our work values and other work-related variables.

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