Couldn't be in class today...

Sorry for my absence in class today. This is my case study work in case anyone was interested in what I would have said in discussion..


I am very lucky to have a diverse group of friends on my Facebook page. I have about a 60/40 ratio of friends from DC to friends from back home in my small town in Rhode Island. A few things I have noticed:

•  My friends in DC use their pages to promote events such as parties, club promotions, football games, etc. My friends from home rarely use the event feature, only for occasional things such as a sorority/fraternity occasion.
• There are more restaurants and boutique stores and independent venues that have pages in DC than there are in RI.
• I have more black friends from DC and they (and the friends who post on their pages) use more nicknames in between their first and last names than any of my white friends (i.e. Boo StrivingforSuccess Jackson or Branden Big Simba Riley). They also use irregular capitalization more frequently (i.e. MARLEY Pollack).

It is hard for me to detect many patterns because I am in the midst of it. However, I think whatever the technology developers can produce which allows people to do more self promotion or talk more about themselves (for example – the quiz or survey phenomenon) will continue to emerge.

 

Not many people have come right out and said it but that is really what all of these SNS’s are about – self promotion. Networking, keeping in touch with people who were not all that good of friends to begin with, these talk-about-you who are you most like surveys are all things that let people examine themselves. They can figure out their personalities and figure out how other people feel about them by tracing their activity on the SNS. It’s such a desirable thing for people that I’m sure SNS sites will continue to develop for people to express themselves further.