With Facebook being the largest in the spotlight, the online social media networking phenomenon has been long established.
The question begs asking: `Why is social networking so popular?' Whether via Facebook, Myspace, Twitter or Hyves, the use of online social networking has become so popular that it has become a real word. According to Urban Dictionary.com, `facebooking' or `myspacing' is a verb which describes the use of social networking sites. A study done by Compete.com in January of this year ranked Facebook as the most frequently used site on a monthly basis by active users. These sites are not only used for communication, but also by businesses for marketing and public relations.
Whether sharing updates, playing Scrabble with your sister who is halfway around the world, posting photos or highlighting links about the latest high-tech gadgets, this form of emerging media is often the easiest and fastest form of communication compared to sending email messages.
Several UT academics and staff shared their perspectives about this phenomenon, most of them saying that they visit these sites on average one hour per day, mainly to keep in touch with friends and family, and some also use it for discussing topics in groups and reading up on current events. One such student, Ferry Haris, keeps in touch with friends, plays games and promotes activities. Haris says, `It's easier to communicate because sometimes people give responses faster than through email.'
One international student at the UT, Joni dos Santos shared, `For me, it is the best manner to keep in touch with friends that I've made in Europe, and when I'm back in Brazil then I will not need to have hundreds of faceless e-mails on a contact list. My friends want to keep track about things I will be doing in the future.'
On Inside Twente, a locally based English language networking site, expats can connect with each other online. Most members on the site are expats with 15 to 17 percent of traffic coming from the higher educational institutes in Enschede. The site's founder Bea Stanford says most of the 405 members have a need to network with other expats, blogging on everything from the pitfalls of the Dutch healthcare system to how to grow organic vegetables. `In reality, expats are feeling isolated,' says Stanford. `Still, these people are hungry for companionship. The whole social media revolution opens the door to global communications.' While the focus is on expats, she remarks that a growing number of Dutch members are becoming attracted to the site. According to the site's google analytics, visitors represent 45 countries and 80 cities in the Netherlands.
Usage equals lower grades?
Aside from the pros and cons concerning privacy, there is also the question if social media lowers the grades of students. In a recent study shared on TIME.com, doctoral candidate Aryn Karpinski of Ohio State University and co-author Adam Duberstein of Ohio Dominican University, revealed that 219 undergraduate and graduate students, who use Facebook, have significantly lower grade-point averages than those who do not use the site. However, 79 percent of those surveyed did not believe there was a link between their poorer grade-point average and their online habits. Karpinski says she is not surprised by the findings of her study, but she states it does not suggest Facebook is directly responsible for students receiving lower grades. She suggests most users don't have a lack of aptitude, but are perhaps prone to distraction. “Maybe they are just procrastinators,” she told TIME.com.
What helps social media work?
Arguably, what makes social networking work is the fact most humans want to keep in touch and tend to flock together. Most recently the physician Nicholas Christakis, a Harvard University sociologist and co-author of the book `Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives,' told USA Today, `In many ways, human beings behave like schools of fish. So many things we normally think of as individualistic — like what our body size is, or what we think about a political topic, or whether we are happy — are actually collective phenomena.'
Zuckerberg's beginnings
The young founder Mark Zuckerberg, CEO and president of Facebook, was a Harvard University student who moved to Palo Alto, California in June 2004 after launching the site. There were a million active users by the end of 2004, and today there are more than 300 million active users, which is almost the same as the total population of the United States of America. In October 2003, while Zuckerberg was still a student at Harvard University, he came up with the idea of Facebook, originally working in his dorm room and the next semester continuing to write a code for the new website. With his college roommates and fellow co-founders Dustin Moskovitz, Chris Hughes and Eduardo Saverin, Facebook originally was launched on February 4, 2004 as `The Facebook for Harvard students,' and by September 26, 2006, everyone age 13 and older could join Facebook with a valid email address. Now, at the age of 25, Zuckerberg's current net worth is estimated at about U.S. $100 million.
Obama on campaign trail
Across the U.S., during the 2008 presidential elections, social networking played a major role in the way candidates ran their campaigns. In January 2008, Facebook co-sponsored the U.S. Presidential Debates with ABC News. One of the co-founders of Facebook along with Spokesman Chris Hughes, who worked as U.S. Senator Barack Obama's Director of Online Organizing, collectively helped to launch Obama's campaign into new dimensions, utilizing the communication tools of a new generation. The attention of Barack Obama's Facebook page brought in a total of over 2.5 million fans, making it the most popular Facebook page. The Republican candidate, U.S. Senator John McCain, only brought in 625,000 Facebook fans. In turn, McCain's deputy e-campaign manager Mark Soohoo response to the Facebook statistic in an interview: `Facebook users aren't McCain voters anyway.' His comments juxtaposed the contrary facts that the fastest growing demographic of users in that year were those 34 to54 years old and older, growing at a rate of 172.9 percent.
