Seeking information through weak ties on Facebook

Abstract

The importance of social media keeps increasing in people’s daily life. Users not only generate information, but also create and maintain connections on social media. Meanwhile, these connections provide users a new way to seek information. This study aims to explore users’ information seeking behavior through weak ties on Facebook. Questionnaire, modified log analysis, and interview methods were employed to collect data. The grounded theory method was utilized in data analysis. The findings reveal that users usually seek information about daily life, entertainment, society, and technologies through weak ties. Both the internal and external factors motivate user behaviors. Browsing and specific information search are the two prominent ways in information seeking through weak ties. Based on the findings researchers will gain insight into users’ information seeking behaviors, and optimize the information search functions on social media in the future.