社群網站之社會資本評估模型

Abstract

社群網站近年來蓬勃發展，和人們的日常生活緊密結合，這種便利的線上服務取代了傳統的分享模式，更改變了我們的生活型態。透過使用社群網站使用者們可以和人群聯繫、獲得大量的即時資訊，許多過去的研究也指出使用社群網站有助提升現實生活的品質；我們可以將這些使用社群網站所獲得的益處統稱為「社會資本」。然而，就我們所知，目前沒有任何研究模型評估社群網站的社會資本。因此，在本篇論文中，我們首先找出影響社會資本的因素，包括使用者在社交活動中的投資、在資訊分享活中的投資、使用者的隱私揭露程度、社交程度和資訊分享程度。接著我們利用最佳控制理論建構一個社會資本評估模型，並分兩種情況分析此模型。首先，先將使用者的隱私揭露變數設為常數，探討使用者在社交和資訊分享兩類活動中的投資如何影響社交程度、資訊分享程度、與社會資本。然後，我們再將隱私揭露設為動態，觀察其變化。在隱私揭露設為常數時，我們發現社交程度衍生的社會資本、隱私揭露的敏感度、累積的社會資本、系統品質皆對社交程度有正向的影響。而資訊分享的程度則與資訊分享衍生的社會資本、隱私揭露的敏感度有著正向的關係，然而太高的系統品質卻會降低初期的資訊分享程度。我們也發現使用者的最佳隱私揭露程度在初期較高而在後半期會快速下降，在這種隱私揭露的策略之下，使用者可以累積更高的社會資本。最後，我們探討其管理意涵，以及它對社群網站上的使用者行為和管理策略的影響。

Social network sites (SNSs) have been flourishing for these years and are deeply integrated in people’s daily lives. This kind of online services has substituted traditional sharing ways and is rapidly changing our lifestyles. Through SNSs, users’ can keep contact with others and obtain lots of timely information. Many investigators even have found that using SNSs may create a strong positive effect on one’s real life quality. We can describe this intangible benefit in terms of “social capital.” However, to the best of our knowledge, there are no models dedicated to analyzing the social capital on online social networks. Therefore, in this thesis, we first identify the contributing factors for the social capital on SNSs, namely, the level of sociability, the level of content sharing, the investment level of sociability, the investment level of content sharing and the level of privacy disclosure. Then, we build a social capital valuation model for SNSs based on these factors and utilize the optimal control theory to obtain the optimal solution. The analysis of our model can be divided into two cases, static and dynamic. In the static case, we analyze the problem by assuming the level of privacy disclosure is constant over time and analyze how the levels of sociability, content sharing and social capital are influenced. We next investigate the results in the case of dynamic privacy disclosure. In the static case, we found that the social capital derived by sociability, the sensitivity to privacy disclosure, the aggregated social capital and the system quality have positive impacts on sociability. And the level of content sharing is positively influenced by that the social capital derived by content sharing and the sensitivity to privacy disclosure. But high system quality will decrease content sharing at early stage. We also found that the optimal privacy disclosure of user will be higher at early stage but dramatically decrease in later period. By conducting this optimal privacy disclosure strategy, user can gain more social capital on social network sites. Finally, we discuss the management insights of the results. Our model can well explain users’ behavior on SNSs and can be used to improve the management strategies of SNSs.