Throughout the course of the past two months, our project went through a lot of changes. Originally, we thought our project could be about online addiction, the consequences of misinformation online and possible interventions, or relationships and social networks. The idea of relationships and social networks was the most appealing idea to us, so we decided to investigate it further. Therefore, our project is called "Social Computing: A Comparision of Facebook and MySpace".
As you can probably tell from the demographic information presented, our sample is rather skewed towards Caucasian female undergraduates, and Facebook users. As such, although a number of interesting differences in terms of usage emerged between Facebook and MySpace, this was not a controlled experiment or a random sample, so please keep that in mind as we share our various views as to possible explanations for those differences.
Facebook
MySpace
- Daily logins
- 80% Facebook
- 50% MySpace
- Possible Explanations
- mini-feed
- email updates
Facebook
MySpace
- Main use of both sites are keeping up with current friends
- Myspace self expression
- Facebook more likely to learn about classmates and coordinate events
Facebook
MySpace
Facebook
- 50.9% people reported to have more than 200 friends and only
- 6.6% have less than 50 friends.
MySpace
- only 10.2% of users have over 200 people registered on their friend list and
- 32.7% have less than 50 friends.
This difference could be explained by the goals of users. Facebook users tend to focus on expanding their social network, whereas MySpace is may be more interested in self-expression and establishment of social status.
Facebook
- MySpace high degree of not knowing their friends.
Facebook Responses
Myspace
Public Service Announcement
How Do You Use Facebook?
- "I keep in contact with friends who go to different schools when I don't necessarily have the time to call all of them everyday. It is also a good way to keep track of various events that happen around campus and to meet people who have the same interests."
- " Very addictive, maybe 5 hours a day sometimes... really bad."
- "Look at funny and/or drunk pictures of myself or my friends."
- "How do YOU use facebook. Probably the same for me too."
- "Send/receive event invitations - upload/share photos - check friend's walls, write on them -check sexual orientation of crushes -stalk people's schedules while playing assassins."
- "I keep up with close friends. Its quicker than emailing and I can't call most of them often (I'm in Iraq)."
How Do You Use MySpace?
- "Check on my younger sister."
- "Mostly for band/concert stuff, and e-investigating."
- "I use it to hook up with the hot strippers in the metropolitan D.C. area."
How Would You Change Facebook?
- "Get them to stop changing it, and put it back to college only, no high school or public availability."
- "Allow users to use colors in their profiles."
- " I would get rid of mini-feed because I believe it helps people stalk too much."
- "Include trans-person-friendly options under "gender," allow for multiple levels of the "limited profile" (i.e. one level for people you really don't want knowing much about you, a middle level of people who you're ok with on some level but don't want seeing your pictures of something, and then the normal level where they can see everything)
"Yes, I would like there to be an option that is kind of like the "poke" button you can use. Only, not poke, it'd be 'crotch grab.' "
How Would You Change MySpace?
- "Too many sketchy rapist people"
- "Decrease the number of creeps"
- "Make it less camwhore-infested."
- "Increase the security, add more music, add some facebook-like features to it."
Neighborhood
Explore friends, family, friends & family, or entire neighborhood.
