Inequality in Posting Behaviour Over Time: A study of Danish Facebook users

Abstract

This study investigates the Facebook posting behaviour of 922 posting users over a time span of seven years (from 2007 to 2014), using an innovative combination of survey data and private profile feed post counts obtained through the Facebook Application Programming Interface (API) prior to the changes in 2015. A digital inequality lens is applied to study the effect of socio-demographic characteristics as well as time on posting behaviour. The findings indicate differences, for example in terms of gender and age, but some of this inequality is becoming smaller over time. The data set also shows inequality in the poster ratio in different age groups. Across all the demographic groups, the results show an increase in posting frequency in the time period observed, and limited evidence is found that young age groups have posted less on Facebook in more recent years.

Keywords

• inequality
• demographics
• participation
• facebook
• big data