Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Understanding The Social Consequences Of Microblogging, L. Qiu, Angela K.-Y. Leung, N. Tang

Ka Yee Angela LEUNG

Microblogging has recently become a new form of communication that is rapidly changing everyone’s life. Through services such as Twitter, millions of people can broadcast short messages to their followers via instant messaging, SMS, or web interfaces. However, few studies have been conducted to understand the impact of these emerging phenomenons. In this study, we seek to understand the social consequences of microblogging. Further, we want to examine which aspects of microblogging are related to the consequences. We recruited 120 undergraduates and randomly assigned them to one of four groups (29 to 31 participants in each group). Each group was …