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Abstract

The ubiquitous use of social networking sites (SNS) has resulted in the blurring of individual's private and professional social worlds. As the use of SNS in the workplace grows, it has been studied along a number of dimensions such as its impact on boundary spanning, the advancement of careers, and campaigning for projects. Earlier research on the personal use of SNS has explored user motivations and benefits of participating in SNS including social capital, status seeking, narcissism, self-esteem, and professional identity. However, these studies attempt to describe with static frameworks what we discover to be a dynamic, cyclical process of creation and consumption of self-identity. We conducted a qualitative research study using a grounded theory approach with semi-structured interviews of SNS users, discovering that the creation and consumption of user generated content (UGC) are symbolic interactions, which recursively produce and consume the users' self-identities on SNS. This cyclical framework for explaining the role of self-identity on SNS is a novel finding with broad implications for understanding the use of SNS, especially in the workplace.

11. Conclusion

Past studies have mainly examined SNSs as a venue for expanding social networks and increasing bridging of social capital (Ellison, Steinfield, & Lampe, 2006b) or for strengthening existing relationships and increasing bonding social capital (Tiwana & Bush, 2005). Other research, in contrast, suggests that neither bonding nor bridging social capital significantly predicts positive responses to requests for favors during SNS use (Ledbetter, 2009). Specifically, it shows that individuals with higher perceived levels of bonding social capital are not more likely to use an SNS (Ledbetter et al., 2011). Therefore, we continued to look for another explanation for participation on a SNS. Lampel and Bhalla (2007), discovered that information related gift giving via UGC sharing was strongly driven by status seeking. Moreover, such status sentiments are likely to sustain SNS use. Panek et al.'s (2013) findings suggest further that students posting content on SNS was associated with an exhibitionistic component of their narcissistic behavior. Nie and Sundar (2013) identified that self-presentation is a major preoccupation during SNS use, where user self-esteem affects the user's sense of agency and guides her self-monitoring tendencies. No study within this stream of research focusing on personal level motivations driving SNS use, however, has focused on the user's meaning-making that underlies processes of identity production and consumption. In this regard our research extends the body of knowledge that focuses on presenting the self and building identity during SNS use. It reveals that sharing UGC is a paragon example of symbolic interactionism and involves constant symbolic production and consumption of the self. Our findings suggest that SNS use offers new affordances for creating cycles of identity construction and consumption, which feed on each other and are especially driven by mutually reinforcing acts of exhibitionism and voyeurism. Exhibitionistic users create UGC through specific affordances available at the SNS while voyeuristic users consume the UGC by viewing and commenting on it through another set of affordances. These behaviors feed off of each other in that the consumption of new UGC prompts other users to comment, (an exhibitionistic act) creating new UGC (an exhibitionistic act), which encourages the original creator of the UGC to create more via new posts (another exhibitionistic act).