Research: Facebook

The website hasn’t become so popular in Italy yet, but in Norway it was so popular last year that the newspapers wrote about it on a daily basis, on issues like “How to use Facebook”, and “How to delete your profile” etc. Over a million profiles are registered in Norway, in a country with 4,5 million inhabitants. Everybody I know (between 13-40) has a profile, and I have found all my old classmates, and we have planned a reunion this year. I’ve joined several groups for fun, some with political issues, some helping other people. Like one group I joined last year, a Norwegian student promised to give 1 NOK to a “good cause” for every member that joined. He got the attention of the news media and more than 80.000 members joined in a couple of weeks. In the end, he got sponsors to cover him, as the payment totaled over 10 000 euro. He paid everything like he promised. (...)





This shows the power of Facebook, and how many ways to use it. Of course it is a big issue with the privacy-settings, since young kids put out all kinds of pictures for everybody to see, not maybe understanding the consequences of that. But still, Facebook for me is a great tool to keep in touch with all my friends, distant or close. I can write on the wall of my friend in New York, while looking at some pictures of a friend in Thailand. Nobody knows that I’m looking, or what I’ve been looking at, and this adds to the “passive communication” part. You don’t have to take part, if you don’t have time. In Norway this was a big thing, since we traditionally have some “social”-issues. Through many years of big distances between houses and the cold temperatures, we are used to staying inside our houses, with our family and our microsphere. So for us Facebook is the perfect tool. Writing a message on a “wall” is easier than writing an sms or picking up the phone, and it is incredible how popular it has become. Especially using the “is…”-tool, is a way to communicate what you are doing and feeling to others, without having to actively take part in the conversation.