Dramaturgical Capitalization of Positive Emotions: The Answer for Facebook Success?

Although user behavior in the popular Facebook social network site has been intensely investigated since the site came live in 2004, we know little about users’ emotions and values weaved in the fabric of their interactions. We report on a diary study for collecting daily accounts of users’ most memorable Facebook experiences. Outcomes emphasize the distinction between public and private presentation together with user motivation for engaging in these roles. Findings outline the role of impression management in the capitalization of positive emotions: a process through which people derive associated benefits from sharing them. Outcomes also suggest that at their heart, people’s most memorable experiences with Facebook are all about positive emotions, in particular those concerned with connectedness and entertainment. Finally, we discuss the implications of these findings for experience design and propose design tactics and guidelines integrated into a framework for designing for connectedness and entertainment.

Content

Author and article information

Contributors

Corina Sas

Alan Dix

Jennefer Hart

Ronghui Su

Conference

Publication date: September 2009

Publication date (Print): September 2009

Pages: 120-129

Affiliations

[ ¹ ]Computing Department

Lancaster University, LA1 4WA, UK

[ ² ]Psychology Department

Lancaster University, LA1 4WA, UK

Article

DOI: 10.14236/ewic/HCI2009.14

SO-VID: c572b0d7-c427-419e-b641-2a58b1960ff0

Copyright statement: © Corina Sas et al. Published by BCS Learning and Development Ltd. People and Computers XXIII Celebrating People and Technology, Churchill College Cambridge, UK

License:

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Conference name: People and Computers XXIII Celebrating People and Technology

Conference acronym: HCI

Conference number:

Conference location: Churchill College Cambridge, UK

Conference date: 1 - 5 September 2009

Conference sponsor: Electronic Workshops in Computing (eWiC)

Conference theme: Computers XXIII Celebrating People and Technology

Product

Product Information: 1477-9358BCS Learning & Development

Self URI (article page): https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.14236/ewic/HCI2009.14

Self URI (journal page): https://ewic.bcs.org/

Dramaturgical Capitalization of Positive Emotions: The Answer for Facebook Success?

Abstract