Using Facebook to Locate Sample Members

Abstract

Locating and retaining sample members is a challenge for any longitudinal study. If sample members are lost to follow-up, the potential for non-response bias increases and power for analyses decreases. Survey researchers have several tools available to locate sample members and a new one has emerged: the internet. This article reports on the use of social media-in particular, Facebook-to contact participants in a longitudinal study and encourage them to complete a telephone interview. Individuals we located on Facebook were significantly more likely to be white, have attended at least some college, and have higher household incomes than the rest of the study sample.We then identify two categories of completed interviews associated with Facebook: those achieved (1) as a direct result of our Facebook contact and (2) seemingly because they were influenced by the Facebook contact. There were no significant differences on several demographic measures for the former group, but the latter shows differences in race/ethnicity, education, age, and household income-and not always in expected directions. We conclude that Facebook can be an effective tool for locating and contacting sample members who have not replied to more traditional attempts to reach them.

Facebook as a tool for respondent tracing

“…That number is small, but the respondents who were located on Facebook were significantly different from the respondents who were found using traditional methods as to their levels of physical activity. Similarly, Rhodes and Marks (2011) could find only 294 of 919 unreachable respondents on Facebook. However, the respondents that they found on Facebook were significantly different from other respondents as to education, race, and household income.…”

“…Perkins et al (2009) conducted a series of at-home interviews about health with young people from 1994 to 2008. Rhodes and Marks (2011) collected data about finances from new parents and again when their children turned 3. The experiences of these research teams highlight the issues that researchers may encounter when using Facebook to trace hard-to-reach respondents.…”

Video Interviewing: An exploration of the feasibility as a mode of survey application

“…Ultimately, 73 percent of the original non-respondents found on Facebook completed an interview for the study, which represented a 4 percent increase in total completed interviews. The additional completed cases by non-respondents were accounted to sample members seeing the Facebook message (Rhodes and Marks 2011). As mentioned earlier, one of the video-interviewing platforms we focus our research on is Facebook, which would provide an added value in not only video interviewing, but also locating sample members.…”

The Use of New Technologies on the British Birth Cohort Studies

“…However, the existing evidence, primarily from small-scale longitudinal surveys in the US, shows quite promising results . For example, RTI international achieved a success rate of 36% using Facebook in a local area study in Oklahoma (Rhodes & Marks 2011), and another local area study in North Carolina found 23% of those they attempted to locate using Facebook and MySpace (Nwadiuko et al . 2011) .…”