The Facebook Project, Revision 1
Consider this page out of date and potentially inaccurate!
Frequently Asked Questions
This section will inevitably grow as the project develops. For the time being, I'll just cover some basic questions visitors might have below. If you have a question that's no on the list, don't hesitate to Email us to ask.
Questions
- What is the Facebook?
- How do you use the Facebook?
- What's the big deal, why is this important?
- What are you researching?
- Hey, do you know why people do [this] on Facebook?
- What's the difference between MySpace and Facebook?
- I have a suggestion, can you research it?
What is the Facebook?
The Facebook web site characterizes Facebook as the following:
Facebook is an online directory that connects people through social networks at schools.
The coming of the information age has inspired the birth of new inceptions in the world of Social Networking. New mediums have caused a paradigm shift in the way we communicate and view each other as more and more individuals become part of global networks. The dawn of a mature yet dynamic and wildly successful Social Network known as the Facebook has quickly become a fundamental defining point to how college students all over the country interact on the internet. So much influence has this service had that social norms of privacy regarding the internet and sharing of personal information have been redefined. In addition service users have adjusted the way they meet and interact with others in daily life as a result of this all encompassing social web. (abstract from Social Computing Phenomena)
How do you use the Facebook?
The Facebook can be used for many purposes. At root the system is a social networking service, but one hosted purely in an online format. If you have questions about how to use the service, see the official Facebook help page. Alternatively, you can read about the features and functions on the Wikipedia page. The following is the explanation found on the home page of Facebook (April 9th, 2006):
You can use Facebook to:
- Look up people at your school.
- See how people know each other.
- Find people in your classes and groups
What's the big deal, why is this important?
Facebook.com, previously known as thefacebook.com (they expanded from this domain name), is a social networking service for high school, college, and university communities based mainly in the United States. Facebook boasts the leading number of users among college social networking sites and is continuously expanding. The web site has well over 5 million registered users1 and gains several thousand more every day.
Facebook has recently2 changed its search system to prevent knowledgeable users from giving specific URL query commands but the most recent count I conducted sited 26,700 profiles3 present marked as being students of the University of Illinois. The total undergraduate count is over 29,000 strong. There is some inflation due to participants employing multiple profiles, transfer or drop-out students, alumni who have not changed their status, and a few other factors. Regardless one can safely estimate that around 90% of the student undergraduate population has a profile on the Facebook. Graduate students are less represented, with only around 1,500 being marked out of the nearly 10,000 present at U of I.
Depending on which source you reference Facebook ranks somewhere between 7th4 and 1453rd5 among the most visited web pages on the internet. Michael Arrington, a writer for Techcruch.com, interviewed Chris Hughes of the Facebook team. His findings were astounding:
The penetration rate is staggering - about 85% of students in supported colleges have a profile up on FaceBook. That’s 3.85 million members. Chris tells me that 60% log in daily. About 85% log in at least once a week, and 93% log in at least once a month.6
As of May 2005 Facebook had raised 12.7 million dollars in capital with Accel Partners.7 Advertisements and flyers can be purchased by groups and individuals with costs varying by the number and school to be advertised to. In all likelihood Facebook has garnered even more profit then publicly referenced; companies like Apple and ESPN have established specialized advertisement groups on the web site.
Facebook is an undeniably powerful presence on the web. Not only has it infiltrated just about every college or university in the United States but it’s managed to establish an 85% or greater saturation in those schools. Usage rates are phenomenal and advertising for the web site has proved its existence as an economic venture.
What are you researching?
The subject of my research currently is the social impact Facebook has made on college-age audiences. The perhaps too successful social networking service has single-handedly redefined college student understandings for and regard of privacy. Previous to the manifestation of Facebook virtually no social networking community could receive total adoption or support. Most people regarded such services as unwanted or
unneeded, while still others viewed them as simply undesirable. Stories of internet stalkers and fears of public availability of personal information prevented full participation. Somewhere along the line, however, Facebook reached a tipping point. Perhaps it was the fact that the network is only available to those with university email addresses or merely a coincidence of the generation, but over the course of two years Facebook went from being virtually unknown to a nationally renowned web site as well known as Ebay, Google, and Yahoo. It remains to be seen how far this trust will go-even now backlash has been encountered in several forms.
Much like AIM names are now exchanged in bars instead of telephone numbers Facebook has become a new virtual meeting grounds for university students. Users are able to view each others profiles and specifically search out others with alike or dissimilar interests. Even popular language and verb usage has changed to suit the service – people make references to ‘friending’ one another on Facebook. One can buy T-shirts that say “I Facebooked your mom” and poking is now understood of probing one another over a virtual medium. With an over 90% penetration rate at U of I nearly anyone you meet can be found on Facebook. Only a small portion of information is needed to find their profile – be it a name, email, AIM screen name, or even just year and major. Clever searchers can find individuals they might have even only seen but have other information about – such as who they’re friends with, where they live, or what groups they belong to. Someone might see a profile for another student on Facebook before they meet in person – allowing for preconceived notions beyond any capacity previously known. Facebook has pioneered new concepts of connection, social approach, confrontation, identification, commiseration, and cooperation in a social context.
Beyond these first two accessible and functional studies of Facebook there are several strong potential theoretical aspects to the service. Sociocybernetics, an evolutionary theoretical framework of cooperation, is based upon the General Systems Theory and Cybernetics. The Facebook is representative of the final stages of this theory: exposure of feelings and intentions, and cooperation for a unified interest among social actors. Just like sociocybernetics allows for the possibility of global social communities instead of nation state based communities, the Facebook creates the possibly of nation-wide, if not global social networks among college students.
The study of cybernetics has brought about the creation of what is popularly known as the cyborg, a combination of organic and synthetic (non-biological) components. Just as someone might depend on a pacemaker or glasses for daily operation and successful existence the information age generation depends on technology as an extension of their pool of knowledge as well as personality. In ages past someone might have gone to a library to research a famous president or spoken to a friend to find out their current relationship status. Now information searchers are more likely to consult Google or Wikipedia for knowledge and college students confer with Facebook. In previous times social knowledge was not readily available save through direct inquiry. Facebook has brought about the near total transformation in this regard-students can almost anonymously find out information on the social engagements and activities of people within the network. The beginning of the information age saw the invention of the personal web page, a space online that just about anyone with access could inhabit and represent themselves. Resumes or portfolios or contact information could be found within the bounds of these personal properties on the web. Facebook takes this representation further to include elements of personality. Like a dating service participants engineer the presentation of their identity online. This virtual representation becomes crucial to interactions within the social network and as such great emphasis and care is placed into the various components of portrayal. In these aspects Facebook as a technology has become a cybernetic extension of both knowledge and personality of the student population.
As a whole the system acts as a cybernetic organism much like a business or city. There are massive numbers of participants interlaced in an endless web of connection in the finest post-humanist fashion. Actor Network Theory dictates that human, social meaning and non-human, material generate reality. Facebook encompasses this concept as well. Though the network is human designed and operated it is far from dominated due to random factors of engagement and use of the system by participants. A participant might be presented a random ‘social net’ search outcome or friends’ picture sampling that results in connection with an individual they would have never encountered without the agency of Facebook. The system is forever dynamic but tends to establish equilibriums between updates and major changes. New features are added and utilized leading to new realities and methods of use. The adoption of picture galleries into profiles, for instance, forever changed the way individuals search for each other on the network. Suddenly a person didn’t have sole control over presentation of their graphic image online as others could place up pictures of virtually anyone. The entire system is also self-regulated, giving a rather democratic and decentralized orientation of supervision.
Truly Facebook is a social force to be reckoned with. Substantial use and infiltration into the college social structure has provoked social change by redefining virtual privacy, methods of interaction and establishing social connection, and ultimately Facebook has become an instrumental aspect of our social knowledge and an extension of our personality.
Hey, do you know why people do [this] on Facebook?
Go check out the findings page to see if we have some answers. Otherwise, contact us about it.
What's the difference between MySpace and Facebook?
Facebook is available only to college students with authorized university emails. High school Facebook grants access only to those who receive an email invitation from a high school student already on high school Facebook. MySpace allows for more customization of profiles and the ability for bands to host their material. There are other differences, feel free to investigate on Wikipedia.
I have a suggestion, can you research it?
Maybe. Go check out the suggestions page for more information.