research-article

Engagement by Design: An Empirical Study of the “Reactions” Feature on Facebook Business Pages

Authors:

Gediminas AdomaviciusAuthors Info & Claims

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), Volume 27, Issue 6

Article No.: 43, Pages 1 - 35

https://doi.org/10.1145/3412844

Published: 25 November 2020 Publication History

Abstract

We study the impact and interplay of social design features on the engagement behaviors toward user-generated content on Facebook business pages. By examining the introduction of the “Reactions” feature on Facebook, we aim to understand how the introduction of a new engagement feature affects the overall engagement activities and the use of existing engagement features. We found evidence of a positive effect of Reactions on overall engagement levels. Furthermore, the introduction of the Reactions feature had heterogeneous effects on the use of existing engagement features. Posts that received Reactions also ended up receiving more Likes and Comments than what they would have received before the feature change. However, the opposite is true for posts that received no Reactions, although the effect sizes were small. These effects were detected within the first four weeks after the feature introduction, and persisted after six months, indicating long-term structural changes in users’ engagement behaviors.

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Cited By

Kim ALu YMa TTafti A(2024)The Impact of YouTube's Hiding Dislike Count on Viewer and Creator EngagementSSRN Electronic Journal10.2139/ssrn.4967594Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4967594
Erickson JYan B(2024)Affective Design: The Influence of Facebook Reactions on the Emotional Expression of the 114th US CongressProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641935(1-9)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3641935
Gurgun SArden-Close EMcAlaney JPhalp KAli R(2023)Can We Re-design Social Media to Persuade People to Challenge Misinformation? An Exploratory StudyPersuasive Technology10.1007/978-3-031-30933-5_9(123-141)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-30933-5_9

Index Terms

Engagement by Design: An Empirical Study of the “Reactions” Feature on Facebook Business Pages
1. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Empirical studies in HCI
2. Information systems
  1. World Wide Web
    1. Web applications
      1. Social networks

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cover image ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction

ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction Volume 27, Issue 6

December 2020

267 pages

ISSN:1073-0516

EISSN:1557-7325

DOI:10.1145/3434240

Editor:
Kristina Höök
KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

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Publication History

Published: 25 November 2020

Accepted: 01 July 2020

Revised: 01 July 2020

Received: 01 June 2019

Published in TOCHI Volume 27, Issue 6

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Cited By

Kim ALu YMa TTafti A(2024)The Impact of YouTube's Hiding Dislike Count on Viewer and Creator EngagementSSRN Electronic Journal10.2139/ssrn.4967594Online publication date: 2024
https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4967594
Erickson JYan B(2024)Affective Design: The Influence of Facebook Reactions on the Emotional Expression of the 114th US CongressProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3641935(1-9)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3641935
Gurgun SArden-Close EMcAlaney JPhalp KAli R(2023)Can We Re-design Social Media to Persuade People to Challenge Misinformation? An Exploratory StudyPersuasive Technology10.1007/978-3-031-30933-5_9(123-141)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1007/978-3-031-30933-5_9
Sturm Wilkerson HRiedl MWhipple K(2021)Affective Affordances: Exploring Facebook Reactions as Emotional Responses to Hyperpartisan Political NewsDigital Journalism10.1080/21670811.2021.1899011(1-22)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2021
https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1899011

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