Friend-Networking Websites Are Taking Over the Web
Before friend-networking websites existed, the best way for online communication was email and instant messaging. Chatting was a fun way to interact with your friends, but the features were limited. One could not share photos, videos, or music. Emails on the other hand allowed you to share photos, but it is extremely difficult to keep in contact with all your friends. Hence, the idea of an online social networking database was introduced. How fun would a website that allows a person to post and share photos and information, find old friends, talk to current friends, and even make new friends? According to the Wikipedia entry of “MySpace,” the first version of MySpace was launched in August 2003. Since then, the website has boomed and people were being pulled in to the phenomena of social networking.
Nowadays, friend-networking websites such as Facebook and MySpace became extremely popular. According to Jeremiah Owyang’s blog post, “Social Network Stats: Facebook, MySpace, Reunion (Jan, 2008),” Facebook has more than 60 million active users, and MySpace has more than 110 active users. These numbers were found back in January, almost ten months ago. Can you imagine how much higher the number of users are today? More people are beginning or continuing to use these friend-networking websites for many reasons. It is a way to connect with friends, share pictures and information, and a way to spend some free time.
People from all age groups are into the friend-networking trend. However, there is a certain age group that stands out. According to Matt Dickman’s blog post, “The Age of Facebook vs. MySpace,” it shows that the majority of MySpace users are between the ages of 14-25, and the majority of Facebook users are between the ages of 18-25. This shows that even the youngsters are involved in these websites. So, what is it that brings in all these users to sign up for these websites?
MySpace and Facebook each have gratifications that attract users. For example, both MySpace and Facebook give users the ability to post comments, send messages, share and post pictures videos, and listen to music. Also, these friend-networking websites allow people to keep in contact with old, current, and new friends. In the article, “MySpace and Facebook: Applying the Uses and Gratifications Theory to Exploring Friend-Networking Sites” by John and Jennifer Raacke, a survey was carried out about the usage of friend-networking websites. Out of the people who confirmed they have a friend-networking account, which was 87.1 percent, over ninety percent said that the reason they have an account is to keep in touch with old and current friends. Students don’t only have an account just to have an account. To most of these people the accounts are important. According to Robin Raskin, “Students are smitten by Facebook in varying degrees, but the majority confess that it’s an important, fairly constant, part of their lives. They’ll check their pages for comments, messages and general happenings.” This just shows why people would consider having an account. But what these numbers do not show is why do users keep the account for long times. What makes MySpace and Facebook so attractive?
From Facebook’s “The Wall” application to MySpace’s “Bulletin” feature, there are many fun tools that keep users pleased. For example, Facebook offers endless applications that are joyful like bumper stickers, games, trivia, top friends, event notifications, photo tagging, pet buying, and many more. It even has instant messaging! Likewise, MySpace also has some fun features like the ability to make a music page, top friends, a bulletin board, fun background settings, MySpace TV (the feature that allows someone to watch television), and many more. For some people, these elements might not be so appealing, but for someone who has had social networking accounts, I can say that these features are great.
I was first introduced to MySpace about two years ago from one of my friends. He told me, “Man you have to check out this website, it’s so cool and it’s easy to pickup girls!” I responded by laughing because I couldn’t care less about online dating. However, my friend kept harassing me until I finally made one. At first, I thought this was going to be a waste my time but I came to find that this account changed my lifestyle. After editing my profile, added music, added friends, met new friends, and viewed other people’s profiles, I was hooked. I would have never imagined seeing myself, the guy that told all his friends “there is no way I will ever have a MySpace,” having a great time on this website.
I spent a lot of time on MySpace, about 2 to 3 hours per day. I finally realized it was a mistake when my report card came in. I was underachieving. I realized that having a MySpace was occupying too much of my time. Despite its nicotine-like addiction, as I think of it, I broke free and cancelled my account. When I did this, I thought that I would be fine and focus more on my studies now that I have more time. I thought wrong. With the leisure time that I had, I didn’t know what to do. I had so much time that I became bored with myself. Guess what I did next? I made a Facebook! I needed to get back to the social networking because I was losing contact with some of my friends. Motives as such illustrate why people are so attracted to the phenomena of friend-networking websites.
There are an increasing number of users of these social networking websites. These websites are appealing simply because there enjoyable. These websites will become even more popular because newer things will be added. Every year, new features are always added to these websites that make it more advanced. Can you imagine how people would be if these networking websites did not exist? How would people be spending all that extra time? Would there have been different types of websites that people engage in? Only research can answer these questions. But for now, social networking is the popular trend.
Works Cited
Dickman, Matt. "Techno Marketer." Weblog post. The Age of Facebook vs. MySpace. 02 Oct. 2008. 29 Oct. 2008
Owyang, Jeremiah. "Social Network Stats: Facebook, MySpace, Reunion (Jan, 2008)." Weblog post. Web Strategy by Jeremiah. 09 Jan. 2008. 29 Oct. 2008.
Raacke, John, and Jennifer Raacke. "MySpace and Facebook: Applying the Uses." 2008. Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. 29 Oct. 2008
Raskin, Robin. "Facebook faces its future." Young Consumers. 7.2 (2006): 56. ABI/INFORM Global. ProQuest. University of Michigan-Dearborn, Dearborn, MI. 30 Oct. 2008
3 comments:
You did very well on this assignment. I learned a lot.
I really agree with you that social networking sites are very addictive just like nicotine. It is amazing how many hours people can spend on these sites and start to forget about other things in life. You did a great job.
I also agree! I know a couple people who spend more than 3 hours on their MySpace everyday. I guess these things can become very addictive and some people just waste to much time on these things more than they really should :)
Post a Comment