Replicating and extending a Facebook uses & gratifications study: Five years later

Social media change rapidly: new technological
features become available and new communication
practices emerge at a seemingly ever-accelerating
pace. These dynamics raise questions about the validity
of applying findings from past research to understand
current systems. This paper explores this issue by a
2012 replication and extension of a prominent 2007
Uses and Gratifications (U&G) study on Facebook. The
current study effectively built on the previous work by
employing the same questionnaire items to measure and determine gratifications for using Facebook.
Reassuringly, there was a high degree of similarity.
However, an open-ended question that allowed
participants to expand on the suggested set of
gratifications yielded a large number of suggestions,
indicating that a more comprehensive U&G study on
Facebook may identify novel motivations for use,
reflecting the increased scale, reach, and functionality
of the site. The original study was also extended with
the collection of empirical, numerical data derived from
the Facebook API describing detailed Facebook usage
and personal network structure. Motivations,
challenges, successes and limitations of the replication
and its extension are discussed.