Hello everyone, I am conducting an experiment (as part of my course), to find out if "real life relationships are influenced by online social mediums".
I hope you can spare the time to fill out my questionnaire and thus help me analyse whether real-life friendships might be influenced by online friend ratings on a social network such as myspace.
Empirical Research Questionnaire
Please select your response in the following situations:
1. Your best friend moved you from first position in their myspace friends list to 5th position do you:
A: (Angry) Call them up straight away and demand an explanation
B: (Upset) Ask them about it once you see them in person
C: (Annoyed) Bring it up casually when you next see them
D: (Concerned) Comment them in myspace and ask them about it
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
2. Your 2nd best friend moved you from second position in their myspace friends list to 8th position do you:
A: (Angry) Call them up straight away and demand an explanation
B: (Upset) Ask them about it once you see them in person
C: (Annoyed) Bring it up casually when you next see them
D: (Concerned) Comment them in myspace and ask them about it
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
3. A friend moves you from fifth position, to out of there top myspace friends list do you:
A: (Angry) Call them up straight away and demand an explanation
B: (Upset) Ask them about it once you see them in person
C: (Annoyed) Bring it up casually when you next see them
D: (Concerned) Comment them in myspace and ask them about it
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
4. Someone you hang around with at school/higher education deletes you from there myspace friends list do you:
A: (Angry) Call them up straight away and demand an explanation
B: (Upset) Ask them about it once you see them in person
C: (Annoyed) Bring it up casually when you next see them
D: (Concerned) Comment them in myspace and ask them about it
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
5. Someone you met at a party the other night and spoke with briefly adds you to myspace and then deletes you the next day:
A: (Angry) Call them up straight away and demand an explanation
B: (Upset) Ask them about it once you see them in person
C: (Annoyed) Bring it up casually when you next see them
D: (Concerned) Comment them in myspace and ask them about it
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please comment your answers or send them to daves_era_assignment@hotmail.com
Thankyou for your time and if anyone is interested I will happily place the final results of this experiment once it has concluded for discussion, dave
Hello, did you sign up just to post this? Do you know what AGS is? It's hard not to consider this spam considering this site has nothing to do with myspace at all.. I mean, at least you posted in the correct forum! But single poster out of the blue raises a red flag for a mod. Respond here or in PM please.
1. Don't care.
2. Don't care.
3. Don't care.
4. Don't care.
5. Don't care.
And why even bother signing up. Nobody here is a teeny-bopper.
This happens to be one of the sites I frequent most. My favorite AGS games are the Kings Quest remakes by AGI, 5 days a stranger, tale of two kingdoms and I am looking forward to the Doctor Who adventure currently being created by duckbutcher....
I have alot of respect for the people who contribute, monitor and post at this site, I had believed that I may be able to gain some intellgent responses here.
dave
PS: My post has in no way broken the rules of this forum, I am not spamming this is a legitamite study, if you have no interest please refain from posting.
PSS: Mouthuvmine, I appreciate your support and thankyou for helping out
Okay, first off, 1:E 2:E 3:E 4:E 5:C.
You don't have to be a "teeny bopper" to have different priorities. And I can really see someone spending a lot of time here and feeling comfortable enough, even having not posted before, to put your survey thingy up here. I'm on this forum daily, many times a day actually, without posting.
And like Mr Colossal said : at least you're in the right forum! Some people seem to have been here forever and mess that up.
Eric
There should be a sixth option for each of these:
F: (Apathetic) Life is too short to let something so trivial bother you in any way.
That would be my answer for all of them.
I didn't mean to put you off but you must agree, a first post that makes no reference to the forum subject, appears to be a form letter and the poster in no way introduces themselves and states that they are indeed a silent AGSer just makes it all suspect.
Thanks for replying but I would agree that this might not be the best place to ask because people are [I think/hope] a little too old for MySpace drama, but I could be wrong! I guess we'll find out 2 things about this study!
Eric
I got all ready post a what-the-hell sort of reply when I saw "Eric" at the bottom of your reply, completely forgetting that it 's your name too. Haha. I guess I didn't get the copyright on it quickly enough :P
[EDIT] ...Eric
No problem, Mr Colossal. I understand that this site is about celebrating amateur game making and classic games, but its one of the sites I visit and as a result I thought I would post my survey here.
I didn't even know about the myspace phenomenon until recently (I don't always keep up with the times), but when I discovered it I thought it might make an interesting subject for study. I hope some of the people on this site decide to contribute, but as you say I may have chosen the wrong place - dave
I actually loath myspace and the rest.
I will admit that I have a linkedit and a facebook account, both of them almost innactive. People (who I know actually) keen trying to add me, and I do add them, but that's about it. I remember posting once in a wall of a friend in facebook and that's about it.
I somehow don't find any joy to that and I can socialize fine without such sites. As a professional trying to make connections I usually laugh at those who try and willingly enter the domain of soundclick/myspace/acidplanet/etc since they enter a competition of 5,000,000 same/simmilar users.
Anyways, rant over. It could be that I'm turning too old as well, who knows...
I probably wouldn't notice any of those things, and wouldn't care if I did.
Well technically, isn't there a rule that says you have to have contributed to at least one finished game before being allowed to post on the general forum?
Ooops, might have just put my own foot in it there... ;)
Any Vash, here are my answers:
1) E. Unperterbed, but I might bring it up with them as a Joke and out of curiosity.
2) E. It really wouldn't bother me.
3) E. Again, it really wouldn't bother me.
4) E. I don't even know what TAFE is... :-[
5) C. I would be interested to know why (especially if it was a nice girl), but not too bothered.
I think any system (be it online or whatever) that encourages people to publicly classify their level of friendship with other people is an inherently flawed and potentially destructive one. Feelings will undoubtedly be hurt, whether the friend cares to admit it or not, and there's really nothing to be gained by such a 'feature'. It seems that most of myspace and its clones are simply dedicated to both the childish and banal rather than to anything actually uplifting or useful.
The AGS forums are clearly superior due to our group hugs and vigorous back-pattings!
I second that.
I vowed not to bother making an top 8 on MySpace, but I did anyway out of boredom once... but I never change it even though theres one or two people on there I hardly ever speak to any more. I don't change it, and I lie saying that I never chose a top 8 in the first place. Simply to avoid any upsets.
I use mySpace all the time to troll for 13 year old girls posting slutty pictures of themselves!!
Quote from: ProgZmax on Fri 16/11/2007 13:41:37I think any system (be it online or whatever) that encourages people to publicly classify their level of friendship with other people is an inherently flawed and potentially destructive one. [...] The AGS forums are clearly superior due to our group hugs and vigorous back-pattings!
You mean that I'm the only one who puts you and LimpingFish on my list of "Bad boys who won't get the Shadowplay demo for Christmas" when you say nasty things about GK3? ;)
I don't like these "questionair" thingies very much so I won't respond to that - just hate answering a bunch of questions.
But I will respond to the Myspace "drama" and being too old thing.
I'm 25. I recently joined Myspace just for the hell of it, post pictures, plug Leitor's Edge slightly and to see if any of my friends from school use it. Come to find out quite a few do. I've added them or out of the blue some would find me - it's pretty cool to talk to them again.
I also joined the Myspace music portion of it just to upload a few of my songs to get a little feedback, which I haven't had much, lol. Guess I really suck ;)
But no, I don't think that you can be too old for it, since I joined it just to see what it was like. I'm actually not on it much, only to check if a couple of friends had written to me.
--Snake
Facebook is good for catching up with old school chums... and the good thing is you don't get random invitations from shit bands every other day, unlike MySpace. But I only use Facebook for their Scrabble and Poker applications.
I'll answer!! ;D
1. Your best friend moved you from first position in their myspace friends list to 5th position do you:
A: (Angry) Call them up straight away and demand an explanation
B: (Upset) Ask them about it once you see them in person
C: (Annoyed) Bring it up casually when you next see them
D: (Concerned) Comment them in myspace and ask them about it I probably would do so with a j/k smilie face and would ask them if I upset them in any way and that I was sorry if I did.
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
2. Your 2nd best friend moved you from second position in their myspace friends list to 8th position do you:
A: (Angry) Call them up straight away and demand an explanation
B: (Upset) Ask them about it once you see them in person
C: (Annoyed) Bring it up casually when you next see them
D: (Concerned) Comment them in myspace and ask them about it
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them I wouldn't be as bothered I guess.
3. A friend moves you from fifth position, to out of there top myspace friends list do you:
A: (Angry) Call them up straight away and demand an explanation
B: (Upset) Ask them about it once you see them in person
C: (Annoyed) Bring it up casually when you next see them
D: (Concerned) Comment them in myspace and ask them about it If they remove me, I'll definitely ask about it.
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
4. Someone you hang around with at TAFE deletes you from there myspace friends list do you:
A: (Angry) Call them up straight away and demand an explanation
B: (Upset) Ask them about it once you see them in person
C: (Annoyed) Bring it up casually when you next see them
D: (Concerned) Comment them in myspace and ask them about it
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
Uhh... what is TAFE? Man, I'm such a noob. ::)
5. Someone you met at a party the other night and spoke with briefly adds you to myspace and then deletes you the next day:
A: (Angry) Call them up straight away and demand an explanation
B: (Upset) Ask them about it once you see them in person Oh, I'd be upset and mad for sure and would never speak again to the mean bastard ever again. :P
C: (Annoyed) Bring it up casually when you next see them
D: (Concerned) Comment them in myspace and ask them about it
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
Your worst enemy moves you from rank 10 to rank four on his Yourspace hitlist. Do you
A: call him up straight away and demand an explanation
B: call him up straight away and tell him his momma so fat
C: drive over to his house with assorted high-powered laser rifles
D: drop a nuklear bomb on his house
E: taunt him by moving him to rank three on your own hitlist
OMG Radiant, I'm laughing so hard I nearly peed my pants!!!!
Or there's always F: Get a change of pants ready for Nightfable.
:P
Don't care x5
My MySpace artist page was made solely to allow some of my friends to hear my satirical country/western song "I'll get down on one knee, if you'll get down on two."
Some of the private messages from random drop-ins (from my area) I got were pretty funny, considering it is a joke. Lots of people do take MySpace seriously, for some reason.
Thankyou to Stupot & Nightfable for answering my questionnaire, I'm up to 6 out of hopefully 20 participants and the majority of the posters who have helped my out have been from the AGS forum, so thankyou AGS forum goers :) ...
I put down TAFE for question 4 which is a form of higher education in Australia forgetting quite stupidly that its not a worldwide institution, so don't worry I'm the Noob ;) ...
cheers,
dave
It depends really. But I think E all the way and I'd feel really depressed. (I don't go to myspace though)
1. Your best friend moved you from first position in their myspace friends list to 5th position do you:
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
Though I'm aware that there are certain unwritten rules of MySpace friends lists, apparently, my position on a friend's 'Top x' doesn't really affect me. At present, I am in the fourth position on my best friend's MySpace page though we both acknowledge that we are best friends. His girlfriend also takes up position 5, beyond me. I have no idea about the method he uses to position his 'top' people, but it doesn't really have much bearing on anything, as far as I'm concerned.
2. Your 2nd best friend moved you from second position in their myspace friends list to 8th position do you:
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
I have a hard time quantifying the best-ness of all of my friends, really, and I also wonder at the accuracy of this measuring scheme - if someone is your second best friend, does that necessitate that you be their second best friend as well? It seems like I could have a very close friend, who is just perhaps quantifiably below whom I would consider my 'best' friend - but that person considering me their closest friend. Are best friends and second best friends exclusive titles? What if someone was my second best friend, because I didn't have very many friends, but they have many friends that they consider closer than me? It seems pretty natural. So it wouldn't bother me in that case either.
3. A friend moves you from fifth position, to out of there top myspace friends list do you:
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
I don't honestly even think I'd notice, but even if I did, I can't imagine a scenario where it'd effect me emotionally - if I knew that they place people based on whom they consider to be their closest friends, I may be slightly flattered, but wonder about the people who were 'demoted' ahead of me.
4. Someone you hang around with at school/higher education deletes you from there myspace friends list do you:
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
Again, this depends on a number of factors - if they were cleaning up their friends list, of course it would make sense - since it's just a school friend, I don't really expect anything in particular. I'm entirely unsure I'd even notice in the first place.
5. Someone you met at a party the other night and spoke with briefly adds you to myspace and then deletes you the next day:
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
I don't consider casual acquaintances, i.e. people I meet at parties, work, out on the street to have any obligations toward me, especially in an online community/chat site like MySpace.
I think that a lot of these scenarios also have to do with peoples' reasons for moving things on their 'top' lists. Because MySpace doesn't have vertical/horizontal limits for pictures on their photos, I often reorder people on my list from 'tallest' to 'shortest' photo, for example, for aesthetic reasons.
This said, I'm not sure if you're taking such things into consideration, but it might be useful to get more information from the people who take your questionnaire, such as age, time spent on the internet/blogging weekly, gender and so on and so forth. I have a feeling that your research would benefit greatly from knowing these things. Now, if that doesn't matter to you, then it's no big deal, but I imagine that if you get 20 people answering, but 19 of them are over 25, working full time and spend very little time online, your results are going to be very biased toward that demographic. Just food for thought.
When I first used myspace I never considered that the top friends was in any kind of order. After all, there is no numbering system used. So I have never placed my top friends in any order, except for my girlfriend who was insistant that I place her in the top left corner, or.. in the number one spot.
1. Your best friend moved you from first position in their myspace friends list to 5th position do you:
B: (Upset) Ask them about it once you see them in person
If we consider that my girlfriend is the best friend as has me in her "number one" position, if she was to move my placement, I would think that perhaps I have done something to upset her, and would ask her what's up.
2. Your 2nd best friend moved you from second position in their myspace friends list to 8th position do you:
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
My real offline friends do not use Myspace, except for my girlfriend, so I wouldn't really care if my online pal Victor moved me to another location on his friend's list. It's his list, and I rarely use myspace anymore.
4. Someone you hang around with at school/higher education deletes you from there myspace friends list do you:
Someone from my top list is no longer there. They either deleted their profile or removed me from their friend's list. Either way, I don't even know who it was...
5. Someone you met at a party the other night and spoke with briefly adds you to myspace and then deletes you the next day:
I can't EVER see that happening. Ever. "Ooh let's be myspace friends!" hahaha.
Thanks SpacePirateCaine & ManicMatt for answering my questionnaire.
Space: I totally agree that a persons age and gender should be apart of my questionnaire as it would identify more than just generalised patterns. However I wasn't sure if I should ask for this information as it might be considered intrusive. That said it could probably be assumed that those happy to take the survey would not be bothered by anonymously stating age and gender, but I didn't want to push my luck ;) ...
The level of internet hours a person spent online wasn't something I considered :o , but now that you've mentioned it seems highly relevant. I will discuss it as one of the limitations of my current results and highlight it as a future improvement in testing. Thankyou for your thoughts on this, would you mind if I quoted some of your ideas regarding my experimentation?
ManicMatt: Your right. There does seem to be a level of insistence between boyfriends & girlfriends wanting top spot, despite as you say the lack of a number system. The whole boyfriend/girlfriend scenario is definitely something I will explore in my analysis.
Question 5 is probably a little too vague. It was meant to indicate someone deciding that they liked you (after the party/event), who subsequently searched for your profile and asked to be added. Then once you have added them they decide to delete you shortly thereafter for reasons unknown...
cheers,
dave
PS: Up to 9 out of 20, thanks to those who have helped out
Sure, Vash, go right ahead - anything I said in this post is for use in your research, so of course you can feel free to quote at will. And for your own personal edification, I'm male, 26 and check my MySpace at the most once a week, often less. It might not be a bad idea as well to ask how important they consider their profiles on/usage of MySpace is. I honestly don't put much stock in it, so my answers are likely much more biased toward a straight 'E' spread.
It may also be a good idea to host this same questionnaire on MySpace itself. You're much more likely to find high representative stats for MySpace users as well, that way (Though I imagine you probably are, already).
In regards to ManicMatt's 'girlfriend' thing - there is definitely some correlation, I think, between perception of the 'top x' for casual users and people who actively groom their MySpace page. In the case of my girlfriend, she doesn't use MySpace, but is actively using Cyworld (Korean community site). Cyworld doesn't allow for reordering people on your friends list, so that's sort of a moot point, but if (for example) she removed me from her friends' list (which would also hide most of her information, blogs and photographs from me), it might cause me some great amount of concern. Especially considering that it is one of the few methods of communication we have while she lives in Korea and I in Japan.
That, I think, stems from the fact that I know when she is actively using Cyworld, she trims her page to reflect real-life thoughts and feelings. In the case of my best friend and I, we aren't really serious about the way we use MySpace, Facebook, or whatever, so it doesn't really make a big difference. So in this case - I can really agree with ManicMatt, and it's as I said, it depends on how you believe the other person uses MySpace.
On a semi-related note, I wonder if you've heard the song 'New Friend Request' by Gym Class Heroes? This whole thread reminds me of it.
1. Your best friend moved you from first position in their myspace friends list to 5th position do you:
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
2. Your 2nd best friend moved you from second position in their myspace friends list to 8th position do you:
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
3. A friend moves you from fifth position, to out of there top myspace friends list do you:
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
4. Someone you hang around with at school/higher education deletes you from there myspace friends list do you:
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
5. Someone you met at a party the other night and spoke with briefly adds you to myspace and then deletes you the next day:
E: (Unperturbed) Not discuss it with them
What? I have myspace, I just never use it.