Measuring Social Media Time Through Expectancy Violations Theory: Chronemic Expectancy Violations on Facebook

• In Event: HIGH-DENSITY: Communicating Interpersonally Digitally and Online

Abstract

Social media platforms negotiate social relations through a concomitant emphasis on new social information, combined with the arrangement and storage of old social information, a two-pronged nature known as social media time (Kaun & Stiernstedt, 2014). This study considers social media time by asking how Facebook users interpret an acquaintance’s interactions with a post made one day ago vs. an acquaintance’s interactions with posts made two years ago through the expectancy violations framework (EVT). Employing narrative prompts and a survey of undergraduates, we found that engagement with posts made two years ago constitute an expectancy violation, and that, fitting with EVT premises, this violation is interpreted according to the reward valence of the violator. Contrasting EVT, violations were not interpreted more positively than confirmations when committed by a high reward acquaintance, and did not have more positive interaction outcomes. These discrepancies are discussed, with future directions for EVT research offered.

Author

• Frances (Franny) Corry, U of Southern California - Annenberg School for Communication