Electronic Healthcare. 4th International Conference, eHealth 2011, Málaga, Spain, November 21-23, 2011, Revised Selected Papers

Research Article

An Examination of the Behaviour of Young and Older Users of Facebook

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  • @INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-642-29262-0_2,
        author={Darren Quinn and Liming Chen and Maurice Mulvenna},
        title={An Examination of the Behaviour of Young and Older Users of Facebook},
        proceedings={Electronic Healthcare. 4th International Conference, eHealth 2011, M\^{a}laga, Spain, November 21-23, 2011, Revised Selected Papers},
        proceedings_a={E-HEALTH},
        year={2012},
        month={5},
        keywords={Interaction Analysis Social Networking Social Computing},
        doi={10.1007/978-3-642-29262-0_2}
    }
    
  • Darren Quinn
    Liming Chen
    Maurice Mulvenna
    Year: 2012
    An Examination of the Behaviour of Young and Older Users of Facebook
    E-HEALTH
    Springer
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-29262-0_2
Darren Quinn1,*, Liming Chen1,*, Maurice Mulvenna1,*
  • 1: University of Ulster
*Contact email: quinn-d15@email.ulster.ac.uk, l.chen@ulster.ac.uk, md.mulvenna@ulster.ac.uk

Abstract

Increased use in recent years of social networking applications such as Facebook has resulted in a rapid growth of user generated content. As a communication tool for social engagement, the online patterns and characteristics of individuals and user types can now be better understood by monitoring user behaviour, activity frequency and modality of use. The aim of this paper is to present an analysis of the behaviour and characteristics of young and older user groups in an online social network. Our findings show that correlations exist between user behaviour and age, based upon activities as evidenced within the data. Visualisation of full user activity has further helped our understanding of user behaviour by identifying interaction patterns, which may be used for the monitoring of social engagement.