Estimating the Social Costs of Friendsourcing

Every day users of social networking services ask their followers and friends millions of questions. These friend-sourced questions not only provide informational benefits, but also may reinforce social bonds. However, there is a limit to how much a person may want to friendsource. They may be uncomfortable asking questions that are too private, might not want to expend others’ time or effort, or may feel as though they have already accrued too many social debts. These perceived social costs limit the potential benefits of friendsourcing. In this paper we explore the perceived social costs of friendsourcing on Twitter via a monetary choice. We develop a model of how users value the attention and effort of their social network while friend-sourcing, compare and contrast it with paid question answering in a crowdsourced labor market, and provide future design considerations for better supporting friendsourcing.