BB #1 - Writing Good Research Questions (Revised)

I have discovered some addictive pulls about myself concerning my socially related[1] behavior online (mainly on social media sites such as Facebook). I want to discover, explore and understand what characterizes my social interaction online on Facebook.

The purpose of this study is thus to try and understand why I bother when no one is responding to or is liking my comment. Why does the count of likes and the response from others online define how well I feel about a certain post on Facebook?

The purpose of this social-phenomenological[2] (narrative, phenomenological, grounded theory, ethnographic, case, etc.) study is (was? will be?) to explore and understand (understand, describe, develop, discover) social interaction online (central phenomenon of the study) for myself (the participants) at Facebook. At this stage in the research, the virtual-social topic (central phenomenon) will be generally defined as Virtual Social Insanity? (a general definition of the central concept).

• Main question

"How do my social interactions on Facebook play a part in my every day life?"

(my thesis temporarily being: My social interaction online/virtually is not (and cannot be) separated from my offline life/"reality". The online interactions are very much "real").

• Sub-questions

"How would I describe a social situation online?"

"What specific online situations do I engage in on a daily basis?"
"What characterizes a successful online social situation?"

"What characterizes an unsuccessful online social situation?"

Defining matters

I will need to define what both "online" and "virtual" mean, including what the terms do not mean ("The common (mis)understanding is experience is zero-sum: time spent online means less spent offline. We are either jacked into the Matrix or not; we are either looking at our devices or not."[3])

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[1] "Socially related" refers to online interaction with others (mediated and text based communication).

[2] A philosophy or method of inquiry based on the premise that reality consists of objects and events as they are per­ceived or understood in human consciousness and not of anything independent of human consciousness. (http://www.thefreedictionary.com/phenomenological).

[3] The IRL Fetish", The New Inquiry: http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/the-irl-fetish/