Missing Photos, Suffering Withdrawal, or Finding Freedom? How Experiences of Social Media Non-Use Influence the Likelihood of Reversion

Authors

Eric P.S. Baumer, Cornell University
Shion Guha, Marquette UniversityFollow
Emily Quan, Cornell University
David Mimno, Cornell University
Geri K. Gay, Cornell University

Document Type

Article

Language

eng

Publication Date

7-1-2015

Publisher

SAGE Publications

Source Publication

Social Media and Society

Source ISSN

2056-3051

Abstract

This article examines social media reversion, when a user intentionally ceases using a social media site but then later resumes use of the site. We analyze a convenience sample of survey data from people who volunteered to stay off Facebook for 99 days but, in some cases, returned before that time. We conduct three separate analyses to triangulate on the phenomenon of reversion: simple quantitative predictors of reversion, factor analysis of adjectives used by respondents to describe their experiences of not using Facebook, and statistical topic analysis of free-text responses. Significant factors predicting either increased or decreased likelihood of reversion include, among others, prior use of Facebook, experiences associated with perceived addiction, issues of social boundary negotiation such as privacy and surveillance, use of other social media, and friends’ reactions to non-use. These findings contribute to the growing literature on technology non-use by demonstrating how social media users negotiate, both with each other and with themselves, among types and degrees of use and non-use.

Comments

Published version. Social Media and Society, Vol. 1, No. 2 (July 1, 2015): 1-14. DOI. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Shion Guha was affiliated with Cornell University at the time of publication.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 License

Recommended Citation

Baumer, Eric P.S.; Guha, Shion; Quan, Emily; Mimno, David; and Gay, Geri K., "Missing Photos, Suffering Withdrawal, or Finding Freedom? How Experiences of Social Media Non-Use Influence the Likelihood of Reversion" (2015). Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications. 626.
https://epublications.marquette.edu/mscs_fac/626