Understanding and measuring mobile Facebook use: Who, why, and how?

Abstract

Although social media are increasingly used through mobile devices, the differences between mobile and computer-based practices remain unclear. This study attempts to tease out some of these differences through multiple analytical strategies and samples. Drawing on theoretical expectations about the affordances, motivations, and cognition of mobile use, we investigate who uses mobile Facebook, why they use it, and how they use it. To do this, we first compare those who use Facebook only on a PC with those who also use the service on mobile devices. Then, in order to quantify mobile Facebook use, we propose a new set of survey measures to tap into more and less mobile users among the sample of people who access Facebook through multiple modes. These questions serve to validate measures of mobile Facebook use, and allow us to examine how patterns of use relate to user motivations and experiences. Findings revealed important differences between PC-only and mobile users as well as a distinct and reliable measure of mobileness. Whereas motivations for Facebook use did not differ across users, more habitual and absorbing use of Facebook was strongly, positively associated with mobile practices. These findings illustrate that people use mobile Facebook in more automatic and immersive ways that are independent of overall frequency of use or motivations. Implications for the psychological mechanisms involved in mobile communication, as well as survey measurement of social media use, are discussed.