Are Busy People More or Less Likely to Use Social Networking Sites (SNSs)?: Prosumption, Time Budget, and SNS activities

Abstract

This study investigated social networking site (SNS) activities from a prosumption-time budget perspective, which is the combination of the prosumption and time budget perspectives. SNS activities were categorized into three groups: SNS consumption activities, SNS production activities, and total SNS activities. The associations between work time and the frequencies of these three kinds of SNS activities were examined. Data for the empirical analysis were collected through a mail and web survey with a sample of 253 respondents and a sample of 394 college students in the Midwest United State from September to November, 2012. Significant correlations between work time and SNS production frequency were found for the two samples. Significant correlation between work time and total SNS activity frequency was found for the student sample. These significant correlations suggest a new pattern that has not been revealed by previous studies: busier people are more active in SNSs.