Trends, similarities, and differences in the usage of teen and senior public online newsgroups

Abstract

This article presents an analysis of the human to human interactions in two public online newsgroups, one targeting the young generation and the other the elderly. The main goal of this study was to establish a better understanding of similarities and differences in the ways of interacting among the participants of these two newsgroups. A series of analytical/statistical techniques, like Social Network Analysis (SNA), were used in order to get a better understanding of the online communities that have emerged around the participants of these two newsgroups. The SNA analysis showed that the teens newsgroup is more highly connected, has more messages sent and received and has a higher reciprocity. On the other hand, the senior newsgroup has more central dominant people who tend to make the rest of the network dependent on them for communication.