Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Kevin Guidry IT Fellow at Sewanee, The University of the South Member, ResNet Applied Research Group
All original content in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Introductions
Who am I? Who are you?
Disclaimers
I dont know it all No one knows it all Were going to play loose and fast with some of the language
Outline
1. Foundation and generalities 2. Facebook 3. Practical implications and practices
Staggering Statistics
Levy (2007)
MySpace:
More than 66 million users visit each month 12 percent of all time on Internet spent there
Facebook
23 million users visit each month More than 2 million users joined in April (150,000 a day)
* - emphasis added
1. Persistence: Unlike the ephemeral quality of speech in unmediated publics, networked communications are recorded for posterity. This enables asynchronous communication but it also extends the period of existence of any speech act. 2. Searchability: Because expressions are recorded and identity is established through text, search and discovery tools help people find like minds. While people cannot currently acquire the geographical coordinates of any person in unmediated spaces, finding ones digital body online is just a matter of keystrokes. 3. Replicability: Hearsay can be deflected as misinterpretation, but networked public expressions can be copied from one place to another verbatim such that there is no way to distinguish the original from the copy. 4. Invisible audiences: While we can visually detect most people who can overhear our speech in unmediated spaces, it is virtually impossible to ascertain all those who might run across our expressions in networked publics. This is further complicated by the other three properties, since our expression may be heard at a different time and place from when and where we originally spoke.
Internet Disinhibition
Suler (2004)
Dissociative anonymity Invisibility Asynchronicity Solipsistic introjection Dissociative imagination Minimization of authority
Part 2: Facebook
Caveats
I am not an expert in this application/tool Research takes time Significant gaps in the research Facebook continues to change
User Demographics
Over 47,000 regional, work-related, collegiate, and high school networks More than half of Facebook users are outside of college The fastest growing demographic is those 25 years old and older Maintain 85 percent market share of 4-year U.S. universities
User Engagement
Sixth-most trafficked site in the United States* More than 40 billion page views per month in May 2007 More than half of active users return daily People spend an average of 20 minutes on the site daily*
Applications
No. 1 photo sharing application on the web* Photo application draws more than twice as much traffic as the next three sites combined* More than 1.8 billion photos on the site More than 6 million active user groups on the site
International Growth
Canada has the most users outside of the United States, with more than 2.5 million active users The U.K. is the third largest country with more than 1.4 million active users Remaining Top 10 countries in order of active users (outside of the U.S., Canada and UK): Norway, Australia, South Africa, Lebanon, Egypt, Sweden and India *Source: comScore Media Metrix
N 0 - 30 minutes 1539 30 minutes - 1 hour 837 1 hour - 2 hours 362 2 hours - 3 hours 89 more than 3 hours 30 Total 2857
Digital Divide
Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (2007): 53% of all US households have high-speed Internet access. High-speed services now account for about 72% of all home Internet subscriptions compared to 60% last year. While broadband subscriptions continued to increase across the country in the past year, broadband penetration remains strongly correlated with household income.
68% of all households with annual incomes over $50,000 subscribe to highspeed access 39% of all households with annual incomes under $50,000 subscribe to highspeed access
81% of all US households have at least one computer but only 56% of those with annual household incomes under $30,000 have a computer at home 45% of households with annual incomes below $30,000 subscribe to an Internet service at home compared to 92% of households with annual incomes above $75,000 7% of all Internet subscribers say that high-speed access is not available in their area
Participatory Divide
Boyd (in press): Those who only access their [MySpace] accounts in schools use it primarily as an asynchronous communication tool, while those with continuous nighttime access at home spend more time surfing the network, modifying their profile, collecting friends, and talking to strangers. When it comes to social network sites, there appears to be a far greater participatory divide than an access divide.
Institutional monitoring?
Steinbeck & Deavers (2007): 1. Is the college monitoring its students online activities regularly? 2. If the institution monitors this activity, why has it chosen to do so? 3. Has the college informed its students of its policy toward monitoring?
Facebook Platform
Official website: http://developers.facebook.com/ Example application: UIUC Library Search
References
Acquisti, A., & Gross, R. (2006). Imagined communities: Awareness, information sharing, and privacy on the facebook. Cambridge, England: 6th Workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies. boyd, d. (2007a). Social network sites: public, private, or what? The Knowledge Tree(13). Retreived June 11, 2007, from http://kt.flexiblelearning.net.au/tkt2007/? page_id=28 boyd, d. (in press). Why youth (heart) social network sites: the role of networked publics in teenage social life. In D. Buckingham (Ed.), Identity Volume New York: McGraw-Hill. Retrieved June 11, 2007, from http://www.danah.org/papers/WhyYouthHeart.pdf Cashmore, P.. (2007, May 24). Facebook F8 Live. Mashable. Retrieved June 19, 2007, from http://mashable.com/2007/05/24/facebook-f8-live/ Dunbar, R.I.M. (1992) Neocortex size as a constraint on group size in primates. Journal of Human Evolution 22: 469-493. Govani, T., & Pashley, H. (2005). Student awareness of the privacy implications when using facebook. Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University. [Student Poster]. Jones, H., & Soltren, J. H. (2005). Facebook: threats to privacy. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. [Unpublished student paper].
References
Leichtman Research Group, Inc. (2007). Over half of u.s. households subscribe to broadband internet. Durham, NC: Leichtman Research Group, Inc. [Press release]. Retrieved June 11, 2007, from http://www.leichtmanresearch.com/press/060707release.html Levy, S. (2007, May 28). Is Facebook catching up with MySpace? Newsweek. Retrieved June 11, 2007, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18754283/site/newsweek/ McCarthy, Caroline (2007, June 18). FaceBook platform attracts 1,000 developers a day. CNET News.com. Retrieved June 20, 2007, from http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/software/soa/FaceBook-platform-attracts-1-000developers-a-day/0,130061733,339278661,00.htm Steinbeck, S. E. & Deavers, L. M. (2007, April 3). The Brave New World of MySpace and Facebook. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved June 13, 2007, from http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2007/04/03/steinbach Suler, J. (2004). The online disinhibition effect. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 7(3). Vanden Boogart, M. R. (2006). Uncovering the social impacts of facebook on a college campus. Unpublished Master of Science Thesis, Kansas State University, Manhattan, Kansas. Watson, S. W., Smith, Z., & Driver, J. (2006). Alcohol, sex and illegal activities: an analysis of selected facebook central photos in fifty states. [ERIC Document ED493049].