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Facebook and other online communication methods are beginning to replace traditional friendships BY
» nickratliff
Last week, senior Steve Sykes waged “poke” wars, planned for East basketball games and talked to his friends. All in one place, all online. “Facebook is my life,” Sykes said. “I go on every day.” Facebook, started in 2004 by then-Harvard student Mark Zuckerburg, was a site originally just for Harvard freshman to get to know each other. The social networking site has now replaced instant messaging as the preferred way teens communicate. With over 64 million active users, this prompts the question, are we now generation Facebook? Janet Rose, a professor at UMKC who also runs a brand and market consulting or “trend tracking” company called the Rose Group, has followed the Facebook trend closely and thinks that it’s the capability to personalize your profile on Facebook that draws kids to the social networking site. “[Facebook] has certainly added an avatarish dimension to socializing, although perhaps that is nothing new,” Rose said. “Facebook is visual, interactive and has the ‘entourage effect,’ which is the capability of making someone really, really popular.” Joi McNeley-Phelps, a psychologist who practices in Lenexa, also sees many advantages to the social networking site. “Things like Facebook and MySpace are great in that they let people meet each other without relying on physical attributes,” McNeley-Phelps said. “It can boost people’s self-confidence in that respect.”
There are downsides to social networking, though. “In some cases, some people give too much information,” Sykes said. “They could have problems like people do on MySpace.” One of the reasons Sykes switched from other networking systems like instant messaging is because of the more customizable and personal nature of the site. “You can obviously do more stuff on Facebook than e-mail and IM and stuff,” Sykes said. “That’s what drew me to it.” Rose believes that the switch from instant messaging to Facebook is a testament to teens. “[The switch from AIM] is just more evidence that teens are more socially aware and often much savvier about such things than older, more entrenched adults,” Rose said. Despite Facebook fans being savvy about their social networking, Rose still thinks it’s just a fad. “I’m worried about the future of Facebook,” Rose said. “The more older, entrenched adults use it for social networking, the more tendency teenagers will have to reject it. I give it two
Some Facebook users are concerned about just how permanent your data is
The Problem: The Facebook site lets users “deactivate” their accounts. However, the Facebook servers keep copies of all information indefinitely ... data is never erased from their records.
by the
2008
“I think that technology like [Facebook] will only get bigger and better,” McNeley-Phelps said. “It will just become more and more popular as time goes on.” Sykes agrees with McNeley-Phelps. “I think Facebook is setup for the long haul,” Sykes said. “Whether kids will keep using it will be the thing.”
introduced a new “form” that people can fill out to delete their account. However, some users who used the form discovered that their profiles were only partly deleted - through a quick google » tylerroste search, information about them could be found. Facebook, however, contests that these people may not have deleted their accounts correctly. » newyorktimes
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3 march
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The Solution: Facebook
Once you sign on, can you really
Never leave?
years.” McNeleyPhelps, however, thinks that Facebook is in for a long run of popular-
85% of college students used Facebook in 2005
» http://www.trendcatching.com » http://www.techcrunch.com 40 percent of US us» http://www.trendcatching.com ers are male (2007)
60 billion average monthly page views
25 and above is the fasted growing age group
50 average monthly page views per user
46 percent of users are female (2007)
6 million photos 1-2 million people are siare uploaded daily multaneously on the site
» all pictures from websites
online ways to
Communicate www.facebook.com:
a publication for an organization, such as a school or business, which helps members identify each other; also, an online version of this, with profiles including a picture, name, birth date, interests, etc. (Webster’s New Millennium™ Dictionary of English)
www.xanga.com:
users are allowed to post any number of weblog entries per day, and may also customize how their Xanga looks using pre-made templates or custom HTML. Xanga sites are most commonly used as personal journals. (www.reference.com)
www.myspace.com:
a social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos internationally. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California (www.reference.com)
www.friendster.com:
an Internet social network service... based on the Circle of Friends (social network) and Web of Friends techniques for networking individuals in virtual communities (www.reference.com)