Anonymous
Exploring the relationship between identity & time perspective in online communities
See published work from this project:
Live for the Moment
Background
This was my dissertation project. It explores the relationship between a website's level of identifiability and time perspective, specifically whether a person was a present-hedonist with a 'devil may care' attitude or a person had a 'work first, play later' future focus.
Challenges
This project faced a number of theoretical and logistical problems. Anonymity still requires much more study and there was not a way to measure anonymity that captures its complexity at the start of the project. From a logistical perspective, it would be a challenge to get participants that regularly used anonymous websites such as 4chan. Additionally, I wondered if participants recruited from 4chan and Reddit could provide accurate data?
Outcome
The findings of the studies suggest that there is a significant relationship between present-hedonism and anonymity. There is also evidence of a positive relationship between a future time perspective and using identified websites.
This evidence supports two main conclusions that can be drawn from the data. First, the material structures of a community (i.e., the community’s level of identifiability) can influence their tendencies related to their time perspectives. Additionally, It is possible for a more long-term temporal structure to be created by increasing the dimensions of identity present in CMC environments.
Actions
In order to properly measure anonymity. I created a scale driven by theory that incorporated both the technology and the psychological aspects of anonymity.
This project used two different studies with two different populations to verify that any relationship discovered could be applied more generally. One population was undergraduate students. The other population was recruited using a variety of methods directly from a number of online communities such as Facebook, Reddit, and 4chan. Data from Reddit and 4chan proved to be just as reliable as data from other sources.