Reading 1

Preece, J., Nonnecke, B., and Andrews, D. (2004). The top five reasons for lurking: improving community experiences for everyone. Computers in Human Behavior, 20(2):201-223.

The authors reported that the reasons of lurking in online settings in the study: “not needing to post; needing to find out more about the group before participating; thinking that they were being helpful by not posting; not being able to make the software work (i.e., poor usability); and not liking the group dynamics or the community was a poor fit for them.“ They also concluded that “most lurkers are not selfish free-riders.”