Digital Studies Research Meetings

Scholarship on well-being outcomes of social media use highlights two key mechanisms: social comparison (associated with viewing social media content) and social connectedness (enhanced by direct interaction facilitated by social media platforms). This literature often characterizes view-based social media practices as passive use, contrasting it with more desirable, interactive active use such as clicking. However, we lack deep understanding of how users experience viewing and clicking practices and the empirical relationship between them. Employing a combination of eye tracking, survey, and interview methods, our study (N=42) investigates the non-click—instances where people intentionally and thoughtfully withhold from clicking on content they spend time viewing. Counterintuitively, we find no difference in viewing duration (as measured by eye gaze) to clicked versus non-clicked Facebook content. Our interview data reveal three audience-related concerns that contribute to deliberate non-clicking and illustrate how non-clicked content contributes to social connectedness when imported into other channels. We discuss implications for researchers, users, and designers.