A Pilot Study of Comparing Social Network Behaviors between Onlies and Others

Extensive research reported that only children (“Onlies”) have different daily behavior from children with siblings (“Others”) in the real world. However, little is known about whether Onlies and Others behave differently in the cyber world, especially on the social network. A pilot study has been conducted to compare the behaviors of Onlies and Others on Sina Weibo, a leading social network platform in China. Through analyzing both online Weibo data and survey data from 1792 Weibo users (52% Onlies), several differences between Onlies’ and Others’ Weibo behaviors were found: Onlies tended to be more willing to express themselves and be more active in social communication within a smaller social circle than Others. More explorations should be done to fully understand these differences between the two groups. A Pilot Study of Comparing Social Network Behaviors between Onlies and Others