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Act or interact?The perceived influence of social media on millennial prosocial behaviours

ELLA WIRSTAD GUSTAFSSON

LINDA CNATTINGIUS

KTHSKOLAN FÖR ELEKTROTEKNIK OCH DATAVETENSKAP

Act or interact? The perceived in�uence of socialmedia on millennial prosocial behaviours

Linda CnattingiusKTH Royal Institute of Technology

Stockholm, Swedenlindacn@kth.se

Ella Wirstad GustafssonKTH Royal Insittute of Technology

Stockholm, Swedenellag@kth.se

AbstractWith modern communication technology advancements, ac-tivist expression has become more common on social mediaplatforms. Especially susceptible to these expressions is themillennial generation, whose lives are greatly permeated bymedia technology. This thesis aims to explore in what waysthe social media platform Facebook in�uences millennials’motivation to engage in substantial prosocial behaviours thatare intended to bene�t other people or society as a whole.Through mixed-method research design, participants’ atti-tudes towards Facebook as a platform for activism and itsin�uence on prosocial motivational aspects, was explored.Results indicated that previous habits of supportive engage-ment and the cost of the supportive action in�uenced howthe likeliness and motivation to engage in substantial sup-portive actions was a�ected by Facebook interaction. Moreprecisely, higher levels of previous engagement, as well asengagement in costly, prosocial actions contributed to anincreased motivation to engage further in such actions. Fur-thermore, social and contemporary aspects showed to playa large part for participants’ motivation to engage in costlyand substantial prosocial actions.

SammanfattningI samband med dagens kommunikationsteknologiska fram-steg har aktivistiska uttryck blivit allt vanligare på plattfor-mar för sociala medier. Särskilt mottagliga för sådana uttryckär millenniegenerationen, från engelskans ’milliennials’, varsliv till stor del genomsyras av medieteknik. Denna studiehar för avsikt att utforska hur den sociala plattformen Face-book påverkar motivationen för individer tillhörande mil-lenniegenerationen att engagera sig i konkreta prosocialabeteenden som har som syfte att gynna andra människoreller samhället som helhet. Genom kombinerade kvalita-tiva och kvantitativa forskningsmetoder utforskades delta-garnas attityder gentemot Facebook som en plattform föraktivism, och dess inverkan på prosocialt motiverande as-pekter. Resultaten visade att tidigare vana av engagemangsamt kostnaden av den välgörande handlingen påverkadesav Facebook-interaktion. Närmare bestämt, högre nivåer avtidigare engagemang samt engagemang i kostsamma, proso-cial handlingar bidrog till en ökad motivation till fortsattengagemang i sådana handlingar. Vidare påvisades sociala

och samtida aspekter spela en viktig roll för deltagarnas moti-vation att engagera sig i kostsamma och konkreta prosocialahandlingar.

Keywords social media activism, slacktivism, prosocial be-haviour, moral self-licensing, media technology

1 IntroductionThe format of social media has made it a popular platformfor political and civic engagement. During the past yearswe have witnessed movements representing di�erent social-political voices rising and spreading through hashtags onsocial media with impactful outcomes [4][15] [23]. Althoughproven to have played an important part as political acceler-ators, some voices remain critical towards social media as aplatform for political revolution [8] [14]. Critical voices alsoaim to separate online activism from its passive counterpart,slacktivism, de�ned as,

political activities that have no impact on real-life politicaloutcomes, but only serve to increase the feel-good factor of theparticipants [5]Especially active in social-political online activism is the

generation that is often referred to as the millennial genera-tion i.e. people born 1981-2001 [10]. A de�ning aspect of thisgeneration and their lives is the constant presence of Internet,and consequently, media technology permeating every facetof their lives. The millennials are a globally interconnectedgeneration and by using social media to stay connected withothers, they can catalyse online communities and motivateaction [7]. While digital technologies, such as Facebook,have shown to sometimes provide powerful tools to engageand motivate, this thesis aims to study the potentials andpitfalls of Facebook, by exploring it’s perceived e�ects onsubstantial prosocial actions. Moreover, as individuals of themillennial generation have been called ’digital natives’ due totheir inherent relation to digital technology[11], this articlewill especially study possible consequences these technolo-gies might have on individuals of this generation. Millennialshave also shown to have a more positive attitude towardstechnology than older generations which could make themespecially susceptible to such e�ects[11].

This thesis thereby aims to explore how millennials’ inter-action on Facebook a�ects their motivation and likelihoodto engage in substantial prosocial actions. Prosocial actions

Cna�ingius and Wirstad Gustafsson

are actions that are intended to bene�t others or society as awhole, and often entails cost or risk to the self [22]. For thepurpose of this study we have de�ned substantial prosocialactions as actions that has a direct, bene�cial impact on asocial movement such as donating money or volunteering.

Facebook is the social media platform which is most com-monly used among millennials and allows its users to engagein social movements in multiple di�erent ways, such as joindiscussion groups and organisations and receive live updatesfrom these [7]. Users can also show their support to socialmovements and organisations by sharing, or liking contentor pro�les [20].

This study will give voice to, and act as a starting-point forfurther re�ection regarding millennials’ perception of usingsocial media such as Facebook as a platform for communicat-ing and engaging in prosocial actions. By �nding out moreabout millennials’ behaviour on Facebook, social movementscan also improve and optimise their online presence in orderto provoke o�ine activist actions among millennials andthereby cause a more substantial impact for change.

Further, the notion of an action as costly, substantial andimpactful, as opposed to a costless, symbolic action thatentails low-e�ort [6], will also be studied in order to gaina deeper understanding of social media as a platform foractivism. Moreover, this study will explore the concept ofmoral self-licensing in a public social context, and how itmight play an important role in social media’s e�ect onaction and motivation. With these concepts explored thefollowing questions will be explored using mixed-methodsresearch design.

How do millennials perceive that their motivation to engagein prosocial actions is a�ected by interacting with Facebookcontent? How do millennials perceive Facebook as a platformfor activism?

2 Related workThis section will review research and theories relating to thisstudy. The related work will discuss the topics of slacktivismand behavioural licensing e�ects that could in�uence howparticipants are a�ected by Facebook interaction.

2.1 SlacktivismThe term slacktivism was introduced by Fred Clark andDwight Ozard in 1995 and was described with a positiveconnotation [5]. It was used to shorten the term “slackeractivism” which refers to activities for young people to par-ticipate in for a�ecting their society on an individual scale.However, the meaning of the word changed several yearslater when it was used in the article From Slacktivism toactivism written by Evgeny Morozov [19]. In this articleMorozov criticizes how people show their support for socialmovements by doing actions requiring no e�ort or risk tak-ing, for example only joining a Facebook group and doing

nothing else. As a part of his argumentation, he refers to hisearlier research where he examines people’s general e�ortsto contribute to social causes and reached the conclusionthat online contribution not having tangible impact on thecause. He de�nes slacktivism as:

"’Slacktivism’ is an apt term to describe feel-good online activism that has zero political orsocial impact."

In the article "Political activities on the Internet: Slack-tivism or political participation by other means?" by HenricChristensen, the author examines what forms of activismperformed on the internet should be de�ned as slacktivismor just online activism [5]. He uses Morozov’s de�nition ofslacktivism and raises the criticism of online activism be-ing less e�ective and online activities replacing traditionalo�ine participation and thereby lowering overall levels ofparticipation.Furthermore, Christensen highlights that according to

Morozov’s de�nition, slacktivism lacks the intention of in-volving people in social movements through actions thatrequire a higher degree of e�ort and risk, and claims thatnot all forms of online activism can be de�ned as slacktivism.Moreover, he argues that if the content presented online by asocial movement encourages people to further participationand involvement, rather than only joining Facebook groupsand sharing posts, it should no longer be considered slack-tivism. He also argues against Morozov, expressing the lackof evidence proving that online activism actions replaces thetraditional forms of o�ine activism participation.Other studies express the distinction between activism

and slacktivism as especially blurry on social media, sinceactivism sometimes relies on the type of slacktivism of themasses that is characteristic of social media interaction [3].In "Clicktivism, Slacktivism, or ’Real’ Activism? Cultural

Codes of American Activism in the Internet Era" Mary Butlerdescribes the possibilities of internet, where people havethe ability to spread information and discuss social changeevery second of the day [2]. Furthermore, she argues, in-ternet facilitates connections between people over similarconcerns without needing organisations or leaders. How-ever, Malcolm Gladwell suggests that the internet "makesit easier for activists to express themselves, and harder forthat expression to have any impact" [8]. Other critics alsoemphasize that although the internet is e�ective to raiseawareness, obtaining information about a problem does notincrease the likelihood of further participation [5].

In this study we will de�ne slacktivism as a term describ-ing activist actions occurring online that does not encouragepeople to further, high-risk and high-e�ort contributions,but increases the individuals’ feel-good factor while havingminimal impact on social movements.

Act or interact? The perceived influence of social media on millennial prosocial behaviours

2.1.1 ClicktivismAnother term, closely related to slacktivism, which also de-scribes online activism, is clicktivism. In both the previouslymentioned article by Cabrera et al., as well as in How Mil-lennials Engage in Social Media Activism by Sasha Dookhoo,clicktivism is described as a subcategory of slacktivism [3][7]. The similarities between the terms are both involvingactivist actions performed online, requiring minimal e�ortand low risk-taking. However, what di�erentiates the two,is the intention of the actions, where slacktivism is mainlyperformed for self-gain [6] whereas clicktivism is describedas a reaction to the content [7].

2.1.2 Millennials and SlacktivismIn the previously mentioned article by Sasha Dookhoo, mil-lennials are described as not particularly fond of engagingin social media activism, and do not partake much in suchactions. However, they still partake in such behaviours to alarger extent than o�ine activism [7]. When they engage inonline activism it is generally by performing slacktivism be-haviours such as liking and sharing posts, in other words, lowrisk and low e�ort actions requiring little previous knowl-edge about the issue. Regardless of these signs of engage-ment, Dookhoo emphasises that millennials are passivelycontributing to activist issues.

Dookhoo continues by explaining that millennials partici-pate in online activism to ful�ll social aspects of interaction,in other words, to get a sense of participation and belonging.Further the author describes how millennials tend to avoidcontinuously engaging in behaviours regarding online ac-tivism if they have already recently done so, and thereby feltcontent with their contribution, which she bases on moralself-licensing theory.

2.2 Moral self-licensing on prosocial behaviourThe goal of this to study is to explore how interacting withFacebook content with prosocial connotations can a�ect mil-lennials’ motivation to engage in further substantial proso-cial actions. This section will present previous research thathas been done on moral self-licensing theory, which sug-gests that people can use previous good actions to licensebad actions [17]. Although moral self-licensing can worksubconsciously, it can also be a justi�cation strategy, de-liberately used to excuse morally questionable behaviors[1]. In the context of online activism, this thesis will focuson the moral self-licensing e�ects on prosocial behaviouri.e. whether individuals whose morally desirable actions arefresh in mind, feel less inclined or motivated to contributewith tangible, substantial actions such as donating to charity[16]. The e�ect of moral self-licensing has proven, in variousprevious studies, to a�ect the likeliness of people engagingin behaviours that are immoral or unethical, after taking partin morally favorable behaviours [18].

2.2.1 Symbolic and substantial actionsJordan et al. found that when letting people estimate howlikely theywere to engage in prosocial activities after describ-ing a time in their past when they had acted morally, theyreported fewer prosocial activities than those who describedimmoral actions [12].Moreover, in a study conducted on moral licensing and

impression-management, Cornelissen et al. opted to sepa-rate symbolic actions that are associated with minimal costsand limited tangible bene�ts, from more costly, substantialactions [6]. Their studies show that having the opportunityto express one’s support or positive intentions symbolicallymay have adverse e�ects on "real" contributions made andthus showing that, "slacktivism" may indeed have an unde-sirable impact on subsequent substantive prosocial behavior.

2.2.2 CostSimilarly, studies conducted by Gneezy et al. explain howthe self-licensing e�ect depends on how costly the actionis to the individual [9]. Costly, initial, prosocial behaviours,they argue, results in consistent future behaviours, whilecostless behaviours subsequently leads to less consistent, andin some cases reduced prosocial behaviours. The suggestionof altruistic behaviour as costly, and thus a counterweightin the ongoing internal balancing of moral self-worth thatresults in moral (or immoral) behaviour is presented in thestudy conducted by Sachdeva et al. [21]. In this study, theresearchers found that participants thinking and writingabout their positive treats donated one �fth as much as thosethinking about their negative treats .

2.2.3 Observable natureLastly, Kristo�erson et al. found that the socially observ-able nature of a task i.e. whether it is performed in publicor private, also a�ects people’s subsequent engagement inprosocial, meaningful actions [13]. In this study, the par-ticipants who initially showed their support privately, ex-hibited greater helping on a more meaningful subsequenttask than those who did it publicly. As in the study con-ducted by Cornelissen et al., the authors use the theory ofimpression-management to explain these �ndings, wherethe main objective of any support is claimed to rather bethat of managing one’s own impression, and not supportingthe cause per se [6]. As previously implied in this article,this underlying concept of self-gain or sel�shness is whatwe use to separate slacktivism from activism.

3 MethodIn order to investigate the participants’ view of Facebookas a platform for activism and its e�ect on their motivationto contribute, the participants were asked to perform a taskin their Facebook application, followed by a survey and aninterview. The participants were recruited from a course

Cna�ingius and Wirstad Gustafsson

within the Media Technology Bachelor at KTH Royal Insti-tute of Technology. The sample consisted of 7 women and12 men, born between the years 1991 and 1999, and thus, apart of the millennial generation. They were also requiredto be previously having encountered posts by any prosocialmovement account on Facebook (eg. WWF, Greenpeace orAmnesty), in order to ensure that they are users of the plat-form as well as individuals who would normally engage andshow concern for prosocial movements and could potentiallybe engaging in slacktivist actions. The questions for the twoparts of the qualitative analysis can be found in appendix 1.

3.1 Supportive tasksThe study was conducted in two parts, one supportive taskwith a corresponding survey and one semi-structured inter-view. This sectionwill describe the �rst part, which consistedof two di�erent tasks that would allow the participant toshow their support to a cause, both online and o�ine. Afterinitially being informed to bring their phone to the study, theparticipant was asked to perform the tasks, carefully readingthe instructions provided for each task.

3.1.1 Online supportive taskThrough an informative form, the participantswere promptedto �nd a post describing a social movement or activism theywould like to support. For the purpose of this study, support-ive practices are de�ned as participation and online sharingpractices involving easy-to-use social media features which,on Facebook, can be practiced by either sharing, or likingcontent or pro�les [20]. The participants were asked to en-gage in supportive practices characterised by low cost andpublic display. Furthermore, this task should, as authenti-cally as possible, simulate a setting where the participantbrowses their Facebook account, and makes a decision toengage in a supportive, costless, public action. Therefore,the participants were informed that it was important thatthey chose a post they think they would usually have chosento like or share on Facebook. Although the test can never becompletely spontaneous, we aspired to preserve as much ofthe participants’ autonomy as possible in the tasks by givingthem the possibility to make their own decision regardingwhat and how to support, and continuously reminding themtheir participation is completely voluntary. Once the par-ticipants had performed the supportive action on Facebook,they were prompted by the form, to provide details aboutto what they did och how they chose to do this. When thispart was �nished, the participant was informed that theyhad completed their task and was now going to continue onto the next part of the study. This was done in order to con-vey a feeling of independence and simulate the participant’sfree choice to act in our upcoming request of a more costlyaction.

3.1.2 O�line supportive taskBefore moving on to next part of the study, the participantwas asked whether they would like to contribute further tothe cause. An o�ine, supportive task de�ned by the authorsas more costly to the participant than the act of liking orsharing on Facebook. The participants were informed thatthis would take 15 more minutes of the study, and were giventhe options to either choose to “Dedicate 15 more minutes” or“Move on to the next part”. At the time of choosing whetheror not to continue contributing, the participants had onlybeen informed about how much time they would sacri�ce,and were not given any further details on what this contri-butions would entail in order to prevent other parametersa�ecting their decision. This entailed a risk or cost to theparticipants, which is characteristic of prosocial behaviour.The o�ine supportive task will test participants’ attitudetowards contributing further by sacri�cing their time as hadbeen previously done by Cornelissen et al. in Clicktivism orSlacktivism? Impression Management and Moral Licensing[6].The supportive action they were asked to engage in wascharacterised as volunteerism, which is the type of supportthat is more substantial and involves the user’s time and com-mitment for a sel�ess cause [24]. Since the interest of thisstudy was only to examine whether the participant wouldchoose to engage further or not, all participants moved on tothe next part without spending 15 more minutes. All partici-pants were handed the next part of the form after choosingtheir upcoming action, and were informed that in spite ofwhat they had answered in the last part, they would con-tinue on to the next one. They were also informed that theiranswer would be of use for them as a reference in their ownre�ections regarding the subject. Whether the participantchose to contribute or not was noted, and the �rst part ofthe study was �nished.

3.1.3 SurveyThereafter, the participants were asked to answer a surveythat would investigate their attitude towards the signi�canceof their previous action and their general Facebook usage.The participants were presented with 7 statements concern-ing this topic, and were asked to rate their attitude towardseach statement on a 5-point scale of attitudes.

3.2 InterviewLastly, the participants were interviewed in a semi-structuredmanner in order to explore their view on supportive onlineactions and behaviours equivalent to the ones in the tasks.The purpose of this interview was to gain a deeper under-standing of their answers in the preceding task to learn moreabout the participant’s view on their own online behaviour.The interviews were then transcribed and recurring themeswere extracted from the answers in order to understand theparticipants general perception of Facebook as a platform

Act or interact? The perceived influence of social media on millennial prosocial behaviours

for activism and in�uencer of motivation to contribute tosocial movements and activism. The main questions of thesemi-structured interview can be found in appendix 1.

4 ResultsThis section presents the results obtained in the study. Theresults are presented in the same order as they were per-formed, according to the method. From the conducted semi-structured interview, two individual sections were extracted.Firstly, the supportive character of each individual was mea-sured based on their answers from the interviews. Secondly,reoccurring themes were extracted in order to present par-ticipants’ thoughts.

4.1 Supportive tasks and surveyIn this section, the results of the online and o�ine support-ive task performed by the participants is presented. Thesubsequent survey examining the participants’ opinions ontheir actions in the supportive tasks, and their social mediausage is lastly presented in a bar chart.

4.1.1 Online supportive taskFrom the sample of 19 participants, 7 chose to show theirsupport to a post concerning climate/sustainability, 4 choseone concerning feminism and 3 chose religious minorities,all chose to like the post. Two participants chose to supportposts concerning humanitarian aid/human rights by likingand two participants could not �nd a social movement causeto support on their Facebook accounts. One person founda cause about human rights and sustainability within thetextile industry that she did support, but chose not to like orshare. She added that she would usually not use Facebookto like posts like these since she was "trying to focus moreconsciously as long as her budget allows".

4.1.2 O�line supportive taskThe purpose of the o�ine supportive task was to learn moreabout each individual participant’s willingness to contributeto a prosocial cause in a more costly, substantial way thanliking or sharing content online. The results of this task ispresented in Table 1, where the four participants whowantedto contribute further to the cause by choosing to dedicate15 more minutes of their time is indicated by a ’Yes’ in the’Dedicate’ column. These results will later be compared toeach participant’s previous habits of supporting a cause in acostly way in order to gain insight into important in�uentialfactors on prosocial behaviour.

4.1.3 Survey of attitudesThe results from the survey investigating the participants’attitude towards the signi�cance of their actions in the previ-ous task and their general Facebook usage is presented in astacked bar presenting the distribution of answers that were

obtained for each question of the survey. Each question isindicated by a letter that corresponds to each bar in the chartpresenting the distribution of answers of that question. Thequestions of the survey are presented with the chart.

1. Survey questionsa. When I showed my support by liking/sharing I felt

that I made a substantial and impactful contribution.b. When I was given the possibility to showmy support

further by spending 15 minutes of my time I felt thatI was given the possibility to make a substantial andimpactful contribution.

c. When I showed my support by liking/sharing I feltmotivated to contribute further to the cause by sac-ri�cing some of my time.

d. I feel motivated to contribute to o�ine activismwhen reading about activism online.

e. When I like/share content on Facebook I usually feelthat I make a substantial and impactful contribution.

f. When I like/share content on Facebook regarding so-cial movements and activism I usually feel motivatedto make further contributions.

g. When I show my support to social movements andactivism by likes and shares, I feel motivated to con-tribute further to the cause by sacri�cing some ofmy time.

Figure 1. Stacked bar chart demonstrating sample distribu-tions of answers of survey questions

Cna�ingius and Wirstad Gustafsson

4.2 Supportive characterTo get a perception of the study’s participating individualsand their previous involvement in supporting social move-ments, the participants were asked questions about the na-ture of their previous engagement. In order to individuallylearn more about previous habits of supportive actions, theparticipants were asked if they had engaged in any support-ive actions, de�ned by the authors as substantial and costly.The supportive actions were de�ned as: donating money to,being a member of, or volunteering for a cause supportingany social movement. For each question, the participant wasscored one point if they had engaged in such actions, andthe score of each participant was calculated, where 3 wasthe maximum score. This is presented in Table 1. The par-ticipants were then divided into two subgroups, where thesupportive score of the individuals who chose to dedicate 15minutes of their time, was compared to the individuals whochose not to do this. These results are presented in Table 2where the group of people who chose to dedicate more time,the ’dedicaters’, generally showed a higher mean supportivescore than the participants who chose to continue withoutfurther dedication, the ’non-dedicaters’. Although the di�er-ence was not signi�cant in this test (p < 0.075), the relativelyhigh probability entails that if the test had been done on alarger group of people it is likely that the di�erence betweenthe two groups would have been signi�cant.

4.2.1 De�ning activist actionsFurther, the participants were asked to de�ne what an ac-tivist action is. A few of the participants gave multiple an-swers whereas others gave none. About 14,3% of the givenanswers were actions performed online such as: liking posts,writing about issues on Facebook, administrating Facebookgroups concerning social movements and signing online pe-titions. Also, 42,9% of the answers were about o�ine actionswhere some examples were: demonstrations, volunteeringor joining an organisation. The remaining 42,9% of the an-swers were actions where it was not speci�ed if whetherthey occurred online, o�ine, or could occur in both contexts.Spending time or energy where examples of such actions.

In addition to this, the participants were also asked if theyhave previously participated in any of the de�ned actions.About 31,6% of the participants explained that they haveperformed actions online and about 36,8% of themmentionedo�ine actions. The remaining 31,6% were participants thatanswered that they have not engaged in any activist actions.

4.3 Interview themesThree main themes were retrieved from the re�ections of theinterviews: (1) Interaction as a motivator to further commit-ment, (2) Facebook as a mediator of important motivationalaspects, (3) Facebook as a noisy and distracting platform.

Table 1. O�ine task results and interview supportive scores

Number Gender (M/F) Dedicate (Yes/No) Scores1 F No 12 F No 23 M No 04 F No 15 M No 16 F Yes 37 M No 18 M No 09 F Yes 310 M No 111 F Yes 112 M No 113 M No 114 M No 115 M No 116 F Yes 217 M No 118 M No 219 M No 1

Table 2. Sub groups supportive scores

Sub group Mean score SDDedicaters 2.25 0.96

Non-dedicaters 1 0.53

The percentages indicate how many of the participants men-tioned the theme during the interviews and the themes haveonly been counted once for each participant, even if theydid mention it multiple times. Every participant has beenindicated by gender and birth year and the quotes have beentranslated from Swedish to English by the authors of thisarticle.

4.3.1 Interaction as a motivator to furthercommitment

Regarding the interaction possibilities available on Facebooksuch as liking, or sharing or one of the interaction possibili-ties presented in Table 2, the participants(36,8%) expressedthem as engaging and motivating for showing support to acause and to contribute further. Generally when describingthe usage of the interactions it was implied that it occurredin conjunction with other time consuming actions to becomemore acquainted with the issue the Facebook-post describes.They described the action of liking a post as an indication ofinterest. A participant explained:

"When I like something it means that I actuallydedicated time to read what it is about and reallylearn about it. I usually don’t just like things. So,

Act or interact? The perceived influence of social media on millennial prosocial behaviours

If I have liked something then I have sacri�cedtime and read about it and it makes me want tocontinue to read about it." (female, 1997)

Further, various participants(47,7%) also expressed the ex-perience of the interaction as not particularly impactful andtherefore disengaging. A like was regularly described asa minimal action that can easily be overlooked and there-fore could not make a crucial impact. An example from aparticipant was:

"I do not believe that likes have that big of animpact, because it is such a small thing in theway that only a few people will see that you didit." (male, 1996)

When asked about the moral self-licensing e�ect, partici-pants generally agreed to have experienced such an e�ect onmoral behaviour in general (78,9 %), but all, with exceptionof one participant, had never done so when interacting withcontent on Facebook. When providing examples of suchexperiences, participants referred to actions that were onlybene�cial to themselves, and not others. The participantscommonly also referred to the insigni�cance of Facebookinteraction such as liking or sharing to explain why they hadnever experience such a moral self-licensing e�ect when in-teracting with Facebook content. One participant expressed:

"I don’t think it matters that much, I mean... Idon’t see it as a statement to like an article. Idon’t feel like ’I liked this article now, what agreat action’." (male, 1991)

The single participantwho did recognisemoral self-licensinge�ecting her behaviour on Facebook explained that this hadhappened when being exposed to a lot of content urging herto sign petitions,

"If I have donated to a group or something, andI see another that also needs a donation I mightnot do that. Or a petition. When I have signedand I get suggestions like ’sign this too’, I don’tusually do that because then I have already doneit to another" (female, 1997)

The participants (36,8%) also expressed that while the in-teraction on Facebook was not impactful enough, the contentand information mediated through the platform was how-ever motivating and engaging further contribution. Theyexplained that what they see in their Facebook feeds cana�ect their thought processes and their re�ections. A partic-ipant said:

"I believe more that what I see on Facebookcan make me want to do something, to donatemoney or something like that, the fact that I readit. But then I do not know if the like itself makesme want to continue doing it[liking posts] orshare it." (female, 1999)

Another participant also expressed:

"It is not the like in itself, I do not necessar-ily have to like something to read the articlethat was shared. I don’t like everything that isshared." (female, 1995)

But many participants(47,4%) expressed they were notactive or showed what they perceived as a lot of support forsocial movements. An example of such a statement is:

I do not participate very much, I am more of alurker so to speak. I take note of information,check a few di�erent sides of the political opin-ion and then I try to compile my own opinionabout it. It doesn’t get much more than that, Ido not share[posts] much or something like that.(male, 1998)

4.3.2 Facebook as a mediator of importantmotivational aspects

When considering the motivation to support social move-ments on Facebook several participants(52,6%) expressedsocial aspect as a determining factor. The fact that a friendor family member liked a post or were attending an event mo-tivated the participant to show interest as well. A participantexpressed:

"It matters more if someone else has liked orshared something. Especially if someone sharedsomething, like a friend that has shared some-thing political or something, then I becomemoreinterested because that person has shown inter-est for it. If a close friend of mine has sharedsomething I really agree with, then I might getmore excited to engage in it." (female, 1998)

Further, the participants (15,8%) indicated that the socialaspects were also a motivational factor when occurring of-�ine. A participant commented:

"(...) because the reason I joined Greenpeaceand donated was because it was a personal en-counter, a personal contact. Not because of some-thing I saw online." (female, 1992)

Contemporary events were also described as motivationalto support social movements by the participants(31,6%). Oneparticipant reported donating money to a cause after havingencountered information about it online.

"And now with the New Zealand incident, a lotof ’fundme’-pages have appeared where you candonate. I get information about it on Facebookand on Instagram." (female, 1998)

Participants(36,8%) also mentioned the informational as-pect as essential to engagement. Participants describe howFacebook, as a platform containing a substantial amountof information, and therefore bringing attention to issuesregarding social movements or contemporary events that

Cna�ingius and Wirstad Gustafsson

would otherwise have gone unnoticed, motivates them toengage. A participant expressed:

"I might not even have known about these con-tributing actions if it had not been for Facebook."(female, 1995)

4.3.3 Facebook as a noisy and distracting platformAlthough mediating some important motivational aspects,participants (42,1%) also expressed that the information avail-able in Facebook was rarely reliable, often due to the over-whelming variety of content accessible on the platform andthe lack of source citing and ability to manage content. Aparticipant explained:

"Less good [about Facebook] is the fact that theposted information is not always accurate. Itis not controlled in any way. It is just normalpeople writing posts and whoever gets the mostlikes is usually the one who is seen the most."(male, 1992)

Additionally the participants(36,8%) expressed that theplatform easily causes �lter bubbles which polarises people,making it di�cult to have valuable discussions about socialmovements issues.

"The issue with the �lter bubbles as well, is that...Like, those who think the same thing only seestheir own views re�ected, so that it does notencourage you to think di�erently. That makesit di�cult to convince them as well." (male, 1991)

The participants(42,1%) frequently described the informa-tion available on Facebook as noisy. They expressed thatthe platform exposes them to a large amount of posts aboutvarious kinds of topics which makes it di�cult for the infor-mation stay on their mind after putting their phone downor leaving their computer. A participant said:

"I think Facebook is a bit too extensive, there areso many things so you do not really know whatis important."(male, 1998)

And followed later with:"I get many [new thoughts], but I don’t thinkmany of them sticks, it is so much noise, so thereis nothing that stands out. It is di�cult to �ndanything that sticks."

Besides being noisy, the participants(42,1%) also describedthe content as not customised to their interests, which de-motivates them to use Facebook for activism purposes. Theyexpressed that they preferred to use other platforms, suchas Instagram, which they perceived as more customised totheir preferences than Facebook. A participant expressed:

"I am probably more focused or attentive onInstagram. Facebook has lost its edge, becauseit is just so much. I feel like Instagram is morepersonalised for me. It is not as much crap. I

think I am at least more selective about what Ifollow there. If I follow any social movementthere, then I am more likely to want to see whatappears there." (female, 1995)

The participants(26,3%) also described discussions heldin the comment sections of Facebook posts as ine�ective orcounterproductive when aiming to discuss issues regardingactivism, which discourages their engagement. A commentby a participant was:

"I get the feeling that many of those kinds ofmovements that exist on Facebook do not oftenhave productive conversations in the commentsection. That’s largely why I don’t follow themon Facebook. " (female, 1998)

Some of the participants(36,8%) described Facebook asful�lling other purposes than to engage in activism suchas communication or entertainment. Some examples men-tioned by the participants were:

For me, Facebook doesn’t have that function inmy life. It is a place where I write to people...Like, on messenger. But of course, if I saw Face-book more as a way for me to express myselfthen maybe I would have used it more for thatpurpose." (male, 1991)"I don’t see Facebook as a platform where I ex-press my thoughts, it is more for entertainmentand communication." (male, 1998)

Additionally, participants(21,1%) speculated whether Face-book might, in fact, direct their attention o� real activism. Aparticipant expressed:

"Yes, but I actually think I would be more in-volved [if Facebook did not exist]. Then I wouldprobably keep up with something that happenedfor real. And then you could not say that I aminvolved on Facebook, as I am now. Then I thinkI would be a little more committed to somethingreally, maybe." (female, 1995)

5 DiscussionThis section will discuss the obtained results, limitations andfurther developments of this study. As this was a mixed-methods study, the results of the di�erent parts of the studyhas been compared to each other in order to detect patternsand draw more nuanced conclusions from the obtained data.

5.1 Ambiguous attitudesAs shown in Figure 1, the participants’ attitudes towards thesigni�cance and impact of their online actions are incohesiveand highly individual. These results are further explainedby the thematic analysis, where these attitudes are havebeen put into context. The thematic analysis can also tell uswhat conclusions can be drawn about participants’ general

Act or interact? The perceived influence of social media on millennial prosocial behaviours

perception of Facebook as a platform for online activism andother in�uential aspects on their prosocial behaviours.

5.1.1 Prosocial actionThe participants who expressed that they perceived the actof liking something as a meaningless action, often mentionedboth the insigni�cance of the action on their own subsequentprosocial behaviour, as well as its intangible e�ects on theworld outside the internet. The participants who did �ndthe act of liking something as motivating, however, usuallymentioned spending time reading about the content, or insome other way giving or sacri�cing to the cause, in rela-tion to interacting with the content. This corresponds tothe suggestion that low-cost prosocial behaviour o�er anambiguous signal of the participant’s prosocial identity, andalthough any displays of prosocial behaviour is clearly posi-tive, because it came of no cost for the participant, it is lesslikely that they perceive it as a diagnostic of their prosocialcharacter [9]. In other words, the participants who gavesomething that was more costly to themselves in correlationto their interaction, also felt that it had a larger impact onboth their own behaviour and the cause they intended tosupport with their action.

This suggestion also corresponds to the general ambiguitythat participants expressed towards using Facebook as a plat-form for activism. Although they felt they were given theopportunity to easily show their support to a social move-ment and activism, they still expressed a feeling of not doingenough for the cause they cared for.

5.1.2 Moral self-licensing e�ectsAlthough previous studies indicate that themoral self-licensinge�ect may have an undesirable impact on substantial proso-cial behaviour after interacting with prosocial content [6],the results of this study showed that participating millenni-als mainly did not perceive such an e�ect to be in�uencingtheir online behaviours. When inquiring about the partic-ipants’ experience of moral self-licensing, the level of costentailed by the supportive action was again mentioned bythe participants as a possible reason to why they had notperceived such an e�ect to be in�uencing their behaviour.

Interestingly, the one participant who expressed having ex-perienced moral self-licensing e�ecting her behaviour wheninteracting with Facebook content, was an individual whoalso demonstrated a high level of supportive character. More-over, this participant did express experiencing the support-ive action a�ected by moral self-licensing as a more time-consuming one. From this, we can deduce that the cost of thesupportive action can also a�ect the perception of a possiblemoral self-licensing e�ect on prosocial behaviour.Lastly, we can conclude that although many of the par-

ticipants had experienced the moral self-licensing e�ect ondesirable behaviours in general, they did not perceive it to

a�ect their prosocial behaviour on Facebook or anywhereelse.

5.1.3 Supportive characterFrom the supportive characteristics of the participants wecan draw the conclusion that they do have causes they caremore or less about, and wish to show their support or makea contribution to. However, from the themes extracted fromthe interviews we understand that many of the participantsperceive online activism as not always signi�cant for themovement. Furthermore, as proposed in the article byGneezyet al., where the researchers draw on self-perception theoryto suggest that when asked to engage in prosocial behaviorthat is personally costly, people would interpret that as a sig-nal of their prosocial identity[9]. This notion could serve asa possible explanation why those participants who showeda higher level of previous engagement, and thus presumablya higher level of prosocial disposition in substantial, proso-cial behaviours, showed a higher likeliness to engage in thecostly, prosocial o�ine task.

5.2 In�uential aspects on Facebook interactionIn this section we discuss other aspects in�uencing partici-pants’ motivation to engage prosocial behaviour.

5.2.1 Social aspectsAn aspect that showed to highly a�ect participants’ per-ceived likeliness and motivation to engage in substantialprosocial behaviour, was the social aspect of an action. Thesocial aspect of a prosocial action a�ected both participants’online and o�ine behaviour. For example, participants ex-plained how they, by the use of Facebook, planned and laterwent to a demonstration together with a group of friendsor that they donated money after talking to a recruiter inthe streets. Furthermore, the social aspect showed, thoroughexamples provided in the interviews, to be an especially im-pactful motivator to costly, substantial prosocial actions suchas attending demonstrations, donating money or joining aprosocial organisation. When describing actions of activismthey had previously engaged in, which were usually of a sub-stantial, tangible nature, many of the participants mentionedengaging in that action together with friends or family. Thiscan be interpreted as an indication of the motivational im-portance of social aspects. Furthermore, as social interactionis fundamental to Facebook as platform and, according to thepreviously mentioned article by Sasha Dookhoo, an impor-tant reason why millennials participate in online activismin the �rst place, we can conclude that this is another as-pect of Facebook interaction that has the ability to in�uenceprosocial behaviour.Moreover, every interaction on Facebook results in a re-

sponse which is usually observable by the public. In con-currence with the study performed by Kristo�erson et al.,the publicly observable nature of Facebook interaction could

Cna�ingius and Wirstad Gustafsson

be another in�uencing factor on prosocial behaviour. More-over, as discussed in the article by Cornelissen et al., if themain objective of any supportive action is rather about self-management than about sel�essly giving, than the publiclyobservable nature of Facebook interaction would make Face-book a suitable platform to engage in such high-publicity,low-cost actions.

5.2.2 Contemporary aspectsFurthermore, the contemporariness of an event also seemedto play a large part in participants’ motivation to contributeto a social movement in a subsequent, costly manner. Partici-pants expressed usually having engaged in costly, substantialprosocial actions when being reminded of how to aid in acontemporary, pressing situation. The motivational e�ectsof contemporary aspects would make the instant informa-tion exchange that is characteristic of social media platforms,a suitable quality of any platform for activism.

5.3 Facebook as a platform for activismWith the themes extracted from the interviews we can con-clude that Facebook is playing a signi�cant part in how thesemillennials assimilate activism in general. Moreover, as mil-lennials belong to a generation who are habitually usingmedia technology, they showed an optimistic attitude to-wards internet and social media in general, as assumed, butseemed particularly discontent with Facebook as a platformfor activism. We can also conclude that although participantsshowed to have ambiguous views on the signi�cance andimpact of their Facebook interaction, the majority perceivedFacebook as poorly customised to their preferences and in-terests, providing unreliable information and noisy due tothe abundance of information. Although experiencing sucha discontent with Facebook as a platform for activism, theparticipants also expressed having to use Facebook, to someextent against their will, if they wanted to try making theirvoice heard.

5.4 SlacktivismAs earlier de�ned, slacktivism is as a term describing activistactions occurring online that does not encourage people tofurther, high-risk and high-e�ort contributions, but increasesthe individuals’ feel-good factor while having minimal im-pact on social movements. This section will discuss theparticipants’ involvement in slacktivism.As previously mentioned, Dookhoo argued that millen-

nials often engage in online activism to ful�ll the socialaspects of the interaction, i.e. to get a sense of belongingamong friends and acquaintances. This correspond withthe results of this study, where the participants commonlymentioned the social aspects of Facebook interaction as moti-vating and a�ecting their prosocial behaviour by supportingsocial movements such as reading and sharing posts. How-ever, the social aspects was also motivational enough for

the participants to engage in o�ine activism and substantialprosocial actions such as participating in demonstrations ordonating.

Further, while several participants perceived Facebook asan important mediator of information, bringing attention toactivism issues that would otherwise have gone unnoticed,others described the platform as a noisy distraction fromin�uential posts regarding activism. As mentioned earlierin the article by Christensen et al, critics claimed that solelyraising awareness about issues does not encourage people toengage in substantial prosocial behaviours. This statementcorresponds with the provided results showing the smallamount of participants having previously performed anyaction they perceived as an activist action, as well as thelarge amount of participants describing themselves as pas-sively engaging in activism. Moreover, few participants haveperformed all of the three actions de�ned, in this study, assubstantial and prosocial. These �ndings also correlate withDookhoo’s statement that millennials are generally passivewhen engaging in activism.

5.5 LimitationsAs this was a study of an explorative nature, the participantswere sampled in a purposive manner, and therefore, fairlyhomogeneous as it consisted of people of a higher education,all studying Media Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. Therewas also a majority of males participating in the study whichmay have a�ected the results, since the females generallyengaged more in activism could be detected from the inter-views. Future research should be tested on a bigger varietyof people with a more even representation of the genders.

5.5.1 Method discussionThe interview themes played an important role in this study,where the purpose was to gain an insight into millennials’ at-titudes towards Facebook as a platform for activism, and howinteracting with its content can a�ect their motivation toengage in prosocial behaviours. However, interviewing par-ticipants individually comes with certain limitations and pos-sibilities. For this study, an alternative interviewing method,such as interviewing the participants in focus groups wouldperhaps illustrate di�erent views than the ones obtained byindividual interviews. Also, another possible method couldbe solely collecting quantitative data about the participantsopinions about Facebook as a platform for activism.

Furthermore, as the results of the participants’ perceivedmoral self-licensing e�ect did not correspond to previous re-search to such large extent, the question ofwhether themoralself-licensing e�ect on prosocial behaviours can even be per-ceived, or if it is only e�ecting unconscious behaviours, be-came relevant. Moreover, since most participants expressedhaving experienced the moral self-licensing e�ect on de-sirable behaviours that were not bene�cial to others thanthemselves, we do not know if the perceivability of this e�ect

Act or interact? The perceived influence of social media on millennial prosocial behaviours

could be dependant on that aspect. Further studies will behave to be made researching this topic.

5.6 ConclusionThis study aimed to answer the questions: "How do millenni-als perceive that their motivation to engage in prosocial actionsis a�ected by interacting with Facebook content? How do mil-lennials perceive Facebook as a platform for activism?". Bycombining the results of online and o�ine supportive tasksperformed by the participants, with the answers of an ex-plorative survey and themes extracted from semi-structuredinterviews, we were able to answer the research questionsand identify possible in�uential aspects. From the researchwe can conclude that the social interaction of Facebook doesmotivate millennials to engage in online activism, but it doesalso encourage them to perform substantial and costly ac-tions which are signs of non-slacktivism behaviours. Wecan also conclude that Facebook is playing a signi�cant partin how these millennials assimilate activism and prosocialbehaviours in general, but that they are experiencing a dis-sonance in what they want to do, what they are urged to do,and what they are actually doing. Moreover, whether thesemillennials perceive interacting with content on Facebookas a motivating factor to contribute further to social move-ments has shown to depend on the level of engagement theyshow in relation to their interaction. Similarly, the perceivedmotivation and likeliness to engage in further prosocial ac-tions has shown, in this study, to depend on previous level ofengagement. Furthermore, this study showed that social andcontemporary aspects of Facebook interaction are highlyin�uencing how motivation to engage in costly prosocialactions is a�ected by Facebook usage. Ultimately, this studyhas illustrated a possible distinction between interacting andacting, and how the former can a�ect the latter. This studyhas also acted to give voice to millennials’ perception ofusing social media to communicate and engage in activism.This information can be used by social movements to pro-voke costly activist actions among millennials, and therebycause a more substantial impact for change. The results ofthis study can also act as a starting-point for millennials tore�ect upon how they would like to contribute to activismand in what ways their motivation to engage in prosocialbehaviour is a�ected by social media usage.

By �nding out more about millennials’ behaviour on Face-book, social movements can improve and optimise theironline presence in order to provoke o�ine activist actionsamong millennials and thereby cause a more substantialimpact for change.

6 AcknowledgmentsLastly, we would like to give special thanks to the partici-pants of this study who contributed vastly to this work withtheir thoughts and opinions. We would also like to thank

our supervisor, Marie Louise Juul Søndergaard, for usefulguidance and feedback throughout the process.

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A AppendicesThe interview was conducted in a semi-structured mannerand the audiowas recorded after participant’s signed consent.The interview was held in Swedish, questions and obtainedanswers were translated by the authors.

• Do you support any social movements? If yes, whichones?

• How do you support these organisations? Are youusing Facebook to do this?

• How do you think one should contribute to a move-ment in order for it to have a substantial impact?

• Do you consider yourself an activist? Why / why not?• What is an activist action according to you?• Have you ever engaged in an activist action? What?• Have you ever been a member in a organisation sup-porting a social movement? What motivated you todo it?

• Have you ever volunteered to support a social move-ment? What motivated you to do it?

• Have you ever donated to a cause supporting a socialmovement? What motivated you to do it?

• Do you think Facebook is a good platform to engageand motivate you and others to support social move-ments and activism?

• What makes Facebook a suitable/less suitable platformto support social movements and activism?

• How do you believe your actions on Facebook cana�ect you actions in real life?

• Do you believe likes and shares on Facebook can a�ectyour motivation to sel�essly sacri�ce for example timeand money for a social movement?

• Have you ever compensated for morally doubtful be-haviour with morally desirable behaviour? For exam-ple: you feel that it is okay to take the elevator to thesecond �oor because you went to the gym this morn-ing. Can you come up with any examples when youhave experienced this?

• How do you believe that this way of using desirablebehaviours to legitimise less desirable behaviours cana�ect your Facebook usage? Can the feeling you getafter liking or sharing content that supports a goodcause on Facebook a�ect your motivation to sel�esslysacri�ce for example time or money?

• If you would imagine a life without Facebook andsocial media, do you believe that you would experiencethe same willingness to contribute to good causes asyou do now? And what do believe you would do tocontribute then?

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