Writing on the Wall: Stanford Students on Facebook (Part I)

Our group conducted a survey asking what features Stanford University students use most on Facebook. The top choices among students were the ability to right on friends’ walls and the availability of photo albums for public viewing. The survey statistics are as follows:

Writing on Walls 72%

Facebook Messages 31%

Pokes 6%

Newsfeed 50%

Photo albums 66%

Statuses 9%

Profile personalization 30%

Creating groups 3%

“Liking” 59%

What does this say about the functionality of Facebook within the college student population? Have the reasons for using Facebook changed since its creation six years ago and booming popularity?

It is no great wonder that the most used feature on Facebook is the ability to “write” on one’s friends’ “walls.” It was one of the social network’s original basic features, and continues to be the most important way for users to communicate. To those who are not aware of the jargon Facebook users have to describe the social network’s features, this seems like a subversive activity, something akin to writing graffiti on a building or defacing public property. Yet I think Facebook creators chose this name because it did indeed attract the attention of users. Wouldn’t it be amusing to “write” on a “wall” without fear of penalization? There is a sense of danger and risk inherently attached to publicly showcasing your comments that must get Facebook users’ endorphins flowing. If there were no sensational incentive to writing on someone’s wall, then Facebook users would communicate solely through the Facebook message system, a feature preferred by less than one third of users in our group’s survey. That being said, there tends to be a certain tone taken with wall “posts” that goes beyond the basic meaning of letters, emails, or messages. As users are aware that their posts are to be viewed by the public, they usually lace them with sarcasm or derision.

Altering the manner of communication because of their awareness that it is to be publicly viewed vastly decreases the legitimacy of communication. According to our survey’s statistics, most people enjoy the wall posts on Facebook than private messages. This fact hints at the direction interpersonal communication has been going in since the onset of the Internet. Is privacy no longer valued as much as it once was? Is the private or intimate conversation going extinct? I don’t think there will ever be a suitable replacement for the private conversation, or at least one that can match the sincerity and genuine lack of pretense intrinsic to a person-to-person exchange.

Let us briefly call attention to the second most popular Facebook feature: the photo album. This is a curious addition to a website focused on connecting people. The photo album capabilities of the site have added to the growing amount of features transforming Facebook into a “sharing,” as well as a “connecting” medium. It appears the “sharing” aspects of the networking site have become the main source of entertainment for users. As previously discussed, modern generations are seeking higher levels of stimulation. The ability to “tag,” comment, and “like” photos gives users the opportunity to take part in the characterization of their friends. Whether it is an image of a friend in compromising situations at college or in a family photo, Facebook has ensured that others play a central role in the development of an individual, for good or for bad.

Survey link:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QZ2CW3L

Video of the New Facebook Profile

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150349956720484

Watch how the new Facebook profile makes it easier for you to tell your story and learn about your friends. It now has more room for your photos and experiences, and it includes new ways to share the things you care about most. To get the new profile, or learn more about the new features, visithttp://www.facebook.com/about/profile/. (facebook.com)

Yet another way how Facebook "re-enchants" it's users with constantly changing but not necessarily upgrading new features.

And to accompany this, an article from the LA times:

Facebook makes profiles more personal

December 5, 2010 | 3:16 pm

Facebook began rolling out a redesign of its users' profiles Sunday, a move Facebook says is intended to better define and display who each user is.

The redesign will reach all 500-million-plus users by early next year, the social networking site said.

The makeover, which makes personal data more visible and visual, was revealed during a "60 Minutes" interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg slated to air Sunday night. And an introduction to the new profile page layout is on Facebook's blog.

The profile page is at the heart of Facebook, the place where a user expresses who he or she is. The new layout is designed to give a better sense of who users are while encouraging them to share even more information with their friends.

If users do share more, that could create a bonanza for advertisers who could target users based on that data. EMarketer says Facebook will ring up $1.28 billion in worldwide advertising revenue this year, up from $665 million in 2009.

On the redesigned profile pages, biographical information such as the user's employer, hometown and birthdate is displayed at the top of the page. Also prominently displayed are the latest photos of the user, tagged by the user or by friends. A new section lists the most important people in a user's life. Another feature shows a history of a user's Facebook interactions with any of his or her friends.

"Facebook wants to encourage people to update their pages more," Altimeter Group analyst Charlene Li said.

Now that the profile page is more prominent, users who have neglected to update their profile for months or years will be more likely to do so, Li said.

That will start more conversations between friends, making Facebook more valuable to those relationships, and encouraging people to spend more time on the website, Li said. Plus, the kinds of information on the profile page -- what movies and books or other hobbies users enjoy, for example -- are extremely valuable to advertisers, she said.

Li also anticipates an uproar from users who typically voice their displeasure whenever Facebook redesigns a major part of the site. She said Facebook is trying to "cushion" the new profile page layout for users by not making it mandatory.

This redesign is the latest of several new features, including a new messaging system, an online check-in application and a deals service that Facebook has introduced to woo users and advertisers.

Related:

Facebook unveils new messaging service

Facebook opens up about mobile, unveils new Deals program

With Facebook's new Places feature, users can announce where they are

-- Jessica Guynn

Likely this will not only boost revenue, but also ring in more user updates which in turn means more time on the site. What is the immediate result, a regrowth in popularity. What is the overarching cultural and societal consequences? More dependence on a webpage to display who you are, rather than a face-to-face confrontation. Good or bad? We'll have to see.

-Sean P.

Psychology of the "Like" Button

Anonymous just finished class for the week and has returned to her dorm room. She takes her laptop out of her backpack and turns it on. After letting her computer start up, she opens an internet browser, types in “face,” and the browser program recognizes that she wants to go to “facebook.com” and she is automatically sent there. She logs onto Facebook and waits for her homepage to load. After looking through some of her friends statuses, she decides to “like” a particular status that is pertinent to her own feelings about the upcoming weekend.

The scenario described above exemplifies a very common interaction that Facebook users could have with the “like” button. But what is a “like” and why do Facebook users indulge in it? The most neutral definition I could come up with for “Facebook like button” is an option on the Facebook website that allows users to provide feedback on stories that other friends have posted, whether that be a picture, wall post status, etc. The like button is a feature that allows users to acknowledge their friends’ items. Before we dive into exploring the often nebulous and intricate workings of human psychology, let’s discuss ways Facebook users can use the “like” button.

1.       Status updates: A friend puts up a new status about a life goal, an inspiring quote, an accomplishment, or an event they are enjoying, dreading, afraid for, etc.

2.       Relationship status: A friend tells the Facebook world that they are currently committed to some sort of relationship. Or, maybe, in a more unfortunate circumstance, they tell the Facebook world that there was a break up.

3.       Pictures: A friend puts up new pictures of an event, a place, a trip, etc.

4.       Wall post: A friend posts a link, picture, video, etc on another friend or the user’s own wall.

5.       Comments: A friend comments under a picture, status, wall post, note, group, event and the user is allowed to like that specific comment.

6.       Fan Page/Place/Business/University/etc.: Informational pages about the preceding entities are allowed to be “liked” by the user.

7.       Friendships: A friend accepts your friend request or a friend is recently friends with someone else. The user is allowed to “like” this interaction.

So many options!! Don’t people typically think “the more features, the more interesting and worthy the product?” Facebook recently released statistics saying over 65 million users “like” things daily. But what really drives people to use the “like” button. The most common reason is to show positive feedback for the update. Showing approval, encouragement, engaging in the sarcasm presented in an update, or proving a point are all reasons to “like” an update, whatever it may be.

With regard to ways the “like” button can pose negative feedback, it all depends on the perspective. Let’s say a friend just broke up with his nagging, controlling, awful girlfriend. Over 15 people like this relationship status change. What is encouraging and motivational (in the sense that he made the right decision) the guy can be devastating to the girl who was dumped. The like button is an influential tool that can boost or shatter one’s ego depending on their perspective and the context the “like” was performed in.

But why do people care enough to even bother to do this? Humans are interactive and social beings. Participating in other peoples’ lives is often necessary for comfort and satisfaction in a person’s daily life. Why do people care whether or not their updates become “liked?” For the same reason that people even bother to like- humans need interaction and approval from others to feel satisfaction about their own lives. Yes, the like button in many ways enables egotism. But, hey, apparently people need it and thrive off of it. Even without being asked, a person can make a statement in another’s life. The power of the “like” button can be reassuring to one person but devastating to another.

-          Shilpa Apte

Ps: Food for Thought- Does the “like” button help Facebook thrive in the way it does? Without the “like” button, providing the feedback that encourages the user to keep updating wouldn’t be facilitated as easily. The “like” button is a fast and simple way to encourage more Facebook usage.

What are the Reasons for Facebook's Proven Success?

                There are currently over 500 million Facebook users (this number does not account for people that have multiple profiles). This number totals more than the population of the entire United States and just under half the populations of the incredibly populated countries, India and China. If success were measured in shear amount of usage, Facebook would triumph. It is the leading social networking site with Myspace and Twitter in close second and third respectively, but each trailing Facebook by at least 400 million users. What creates the astonishing difference between Facebook usage and other social network usage? Facebook’s proven success is driven by the ease of its usability. Facebook fares well on all five Nielson characteristics of Usability:

1.       1. Learnability- Facebook is pretty self-explanatory and straightforward. The userface is intuitive and simple in comparison to other social networking sites.

2.      2.  Efficiency- The speed of AJAX (programming language) interfaces allows for Facebook users to perform actions quickly and to be more interactive.

3.      3.  Memorability- Facebook’s layout has stayed fairly consistent. Once you get the hang of using Facebook, it is hard to forget and if forgotten, easy to pick up again.

4.      4.  Error-handling- Thanks to AJAX, errors are caught quickly and eliminated efficiently. Users will rarely see a blank screen and feedback is immediate.

5.       5. Satisfaction- Aesthetically, Facebook is very pleasing. It is clutter-less, organized, and easy to navigate. The graphics are neutral but agreeable.

Besides usability, Facebook has averted a significant amount of hacking and spamming in comparison to other social networking sites. Not only has it kept its platform relatively clean, it has also been on the forefront of innovative social networking. For instance, businesses now use Facebook as a primary source of publicity. Facebook has attracted the older generations as well as the younger generations. For many parents, Facebook is the only way they have been able to contact long lost friends from college or high school. The fact that Facebook transcends all generations is a measure of success in an age where technology grows and changes at a rate higher than the learning curve for many older generations.

It is human nature to want to know who we are dealing with. A person’s Facebook profile can recreate or represent a user’s personality and this makes the Facebook experience sincere and real. At its inception, Facebook gained the support of the student body of one of the most prestigious Universities in the whole world and this kind of exposure has given a kind of legitimacy that no other social networking site has been able to receive.

Has Facebook driven social interaction into a corner (Part VI)?

In Parts I-V stated the following: Facebook allows its users quick and simple communication on a pleasant interface with millions upon millions of fellow users and the ability to individualize one’s profile information.

In my last entry, I discussed the “millions upon millions of fellow users” portion of my original statement. I looked at how Facebook has been able to acquire such a large population base, and attempted to solve the paradox intrinsic to that question. We then examined the psychology of Facebook “friendships,” paying special attention to the limits of the brain, sensory system, and maximum emotional capacity. Finally, I asked if these “friendships” are just brief acquaintances or a new kind of human relationship evolving since the onset of the internet. Yet we were left with the following question: Can human interaction evolve this drastically within such a short timeframe?

I would like to wrap up this series about Facebook’s effects on social interaction by looking at the last part of my original statement: “the ability to individualize one’s profile information.” As previously discussed, Facebook is unique from the internet’s previously most popular social networking site, Myspace, because of its “corporate” or genuinely considered more professional appearance. Although Facebook allows its users a certain level of personalization (through photo albums, profile pictures, and personal information areas), the general appearance of one’s profile is largely uniform. As you can see from Sean Posada’s blog entry below, Facebook users cannot change from the classic blue and white format. It seems this uniformity between profiles keeps Facebook unique from other social networking sites in which you can personalize or reformat many, if not all, profile aspects. Many users believe this is an advantage to using Facebook, as most of the profile is “done” for you and cannot get aesthetically out of control.

There is a certain weight that the “Information” tab carries for Facebook users, particularly the “Basic information” section. This profile area offers viewers the user’s fundamental characteristics, yet they contain some of the most socially contested details on the internet. The “Interested In” and “Religious Views” areas have been a great source of individualistic expression, generally providing users with the first step in accepting and expressing themselves in a public fashion. The question arises whether this is a healthy alternative to conversation with friends and family over such issues. On the one hand, this medium gives users the advantage of a certain degree of confidence which other, more intimate situations might not grant them. On the other hand, this type of self-expression skips over the development stages of a self-concept and allows users to immediately publish their personal thoughts and feelings to a global audience. When talking yesterday with a former academic ahdvisor, the topic of personalization via social networking sites came up. My advisor stated, “Nothing’s private anymore with Facebook.” I couldn’t help agreeing. The handful of questions Facebook initially asks of its users subject them to instant social stigmas and profiling by their peers, families, and superiors.

With social networking sites, it is impossible to split your worlds. What I mean by this is that a Facebook user cannot choose which “friends” can know he’s an atheist and which cannot, without restricting larger parts of his profile. People using Facebook for “business networking” reasons cannot mix their details with their friends and family if they are to keep up a professional appearance. Thus, the personalization aspect of Facebook becomes a blessing and a curse.

In addition, Facebook has recently pushed its users to utilize Facebook as an “organizer” for their other social websites. The ad at the beginning of this post urges users to register their other sites through Facebook for “instant personalization.” This begs me to ask, how much information is too much information? It’s a slippery slope to the end of privacy.

Has Facebook driven social interaction into a corner? (Part V)

In Parts I-IV I stated the following: Facebook allows its users quick and simple communication on a pleasant interface with millions upon millions of fellow users and the ability to individualize one’s profile information.

In my last entry, I discussed the “pleasant interface” portion of my previous statement under the assumption that Facebook has imposed itself open society instead of the user population consciously changing its tastes to online social networks over other forms of communication. We have seen that this comes about by a combination of users seeking new thrilling media and social networks taking advantage of popular preferences.

Let us now examine the “millions upon millions of fellow users” portion of my original statement. I will begin with a few questions. Is the “millions upon millions of fellow users” facet of Facebook what draws so many users? In other words, is the promotion of its large network the reason for its large network? On a psychological level, can humans maintain so many social connections? Are the relationships “maintained” through Facebook illegitimate relationships, or are they a precursor to human interaction in decades/centuries/millennia to come? What is the significance of “adding” someone as a friend? Are all these friends on an equal level? Are they even friends at all?

It seems paradoxical but it appears that the reason that Facebook has hundreds of millions of users is because it indeed has hundreds of millions of users. As discussed before, Facebook began with a considerably smaller population of users who, ironically using other forms of media (e.g. word of mouth, phone conversations, etc.), diffused the ingenuity of the social network. It is thus logical that before a certain point, Facebook’s survival was in the hands of a select group of individuals who, the network’s officials hoped, would give the site enough publicity that it could soon support itself. Only now can Facebook’s reputation support itself regardless of word of mouth. It appears that a range of user numbers was sufficient for the social network to sustain itself, and become more successful through its undisputed dominant position over other networking sites.

This year, Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary anthropology at Oxford, held a study on human relationships in which he discovered that “people tend to self-organise in groups of 150 because social cohesion begins to deteriorate as groups become larger.” If this is so, how do people have hundreds of friends? How is it that 95% of my own Facebook friends have over 150 friends, and 10% have 1000 or more? If the human brain and physical and emotional capabilities are able to have 150 relationships, does this mean 95% of my friends have evolved beyond this limit? I think not. The probable explanation is that Facebook is conducive to forming acquaintances. Facebook has its members with 2000 friends believe they indeed have at least 2000 relationships in their lives. Yet in reality, “friends” are “made” by just a click of a button. 1850 of these “friends” have distant and frayed social network connections to our 2000-friend member. The question arises again, “Is Facebook preparing us for the future of human relationships?” Will social networking sites enhance human capabilities to sustain relationships in the future? This is highly doubtful for millennia. For now, Facebook just does a superior job of connecting their users to one another. Facebook can’t make friends for you. But it can make you thousands of acquaintances whose histories and faces you can chunk in your memory. Our emotional range and sensory systems haven’t quite caught up with Facebook’s social enthusiasm.

Article from The Sunday Times

OMG: brains can’t handle all our Facebook friends

Chris Gourlay January 24, 2010

WE may be able to amass 5,000 friends on Facebook but humans’ brains are capable of managing a maximum of only 150 friendships, a study has found.

Robin Dunbar, professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, has conducted research revealing that while social networking sites allow us to maintain more relationships, the number of meaningful friendships is the same as it has been throughout history.

Dunbar developed a theory known as “Dunbar’s number” in the 1990s which claimed that the size of our neocortex — the part of the brain used for conscious thought and language — limits us to managing social circles of around 150 friends, no matter how sociable we are.

These are relationships in which a person knows how each friend relates to every other friend. They are people you care about and contact at least once a year.

Dunbar derived the limit from studying social groupings in a variety of societies — from neolithic villages to modern office environments.

He found that people tended to self-organise in groups of around 150 because social cohesion begins to deteriorate as groups become larger.

Dunbar is now studying social networking websites to see if the “Facebook effect” has stretched the size of social groupings. Preliminary results suggest it has not.

“The interesting thing is that you can have 1,500 friends but when you actually look at traffic on sites, you see people maintain the same inner circle of around 150 people that we observe in the real world,” said Dunbar.

“People obviously like the kudos of having hundreds of friends but the reality is that they’re unlikely to be bigger than anyone else’s.

“There is a big sex difference though ... girls are much better at maintaining relationships just by talking to each other. Boys need to do physical stuff together.”

Dunbar’s study is due to be published later this year.

http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article6999879.ece