When I was trying to think of something to write for this post, I asked myself a question that I'm not sure many other people ask themselves: Why do we use Facebook?
Now I know why I use it, to communicate with my friends and family and to keep up to date on things that are going on with my friends, but I also realized that I use it alot of the time just because I'm bored or I'm procrastinating on homework, or because I just feel like I should be on facebook.
I googled the sentence "why do people use Facebook?" and I found an article that was talking about a study conducted at the University of Missouri about how people use Facebook. Kevin Wise, a professor at the University designed a study that would actually allow him to see how his test subjects were using Facebook, instead of having the test subjects tell them how they use the social networking site daily. He found that people use Facebook for mainly two things: Social Browsing and Social Searching
He defined social browsing as "navigating the site without a targeted goal in mind" and defined social searching as "searching the social networking site with the goal of finding certain information about a specific person, group, or event." The results of his study showed that most people spend their time social searching, but then it often leads to social browsing
As a Facebook user, in my opinion I think that these findings are extremely true. A lot of the time I get on Facebook for a specific purpose, to look at someones status of pictures, but then I often end up spending way to much time going from page to page without a purpose or reason, which means that I transition from a searcher to a browser without even realizing it.
This study really interested me because it accurately explained why so many people end up spending so much time on Facebook without meaning too. And I think that if you sort of analyze your Facebook use habits, you will find that this study most likely applies to you too.
http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/04/26/how-people-use-facebook/13162.html
I found this topic very interesting! My blog is about being addicted to technology so this post gave me some insight into my topic. It makes alot of that we just randomly go from paget to page without realizing it. My friends and I always make jokes about how we "stalk" people on Facebook to find info about a person. However, we always end up on some random person's page that we would never normally look at. I'm glad to hear that other people do this too! This has given me something to think about for my own blog.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this. It seems to me to be very accurate when it comes to why we use Facebook. I can agree from personal experience that Facebook is practically just a waste of time. While I am writing my comments, I have my facebook tap up as well as the blog tabs. It really is sad because I know I waste so much time on Facebook, but I just can't stop going on it, i just gives me something to do when I'm bored.
ReplyDeleteWow! Here I am wasting away my evenings because Facebook is more appealing then the stack of flashcards I should be studying. Who knew there was an official label on my boredom activities. I say i use Facebook to stay connected, but thats why I have one, not why I use one. I use my Facebook because I'm bored. Though I have the sincere intentions to be interested in my friends lives, I have also come to realize that I have people following my life that I dont even know. If you ever get a chance look at your friends and you will be surprised to see the people who have access to follow your life.
ReplyDelete