International Encyclopedia of Communication Online

Extract

Facebook is the world's largest social networking service (SNS; →  Social Media ). Launched in 2004, it quickly extended beyond a network linking students at Harvard University into a vast site where personal relationships are performed and aspects of commercial and public life carried out. Researchers from computer-mediated communication and →  human–computer interaction backgrounds have established that Facebook is best understood as a social environment, that is, a space used by different people for many different purposes. Joinson (2008) , for example, has isolated seven →  uses and gratifications : social connection, shared identities, photographs, content, social investigation, social network surfing, and status updating. Despite this range of uses, there is wide agreement that people tend to use Facebook more to deepen existing social relations than to make new connections. A number of studies also conclude that active use of Facebook links with social engagement, a desire for social contact, and a willingness to connect with others ( Steinfield et al. 2008 ). There is some evidence that using Facebook increases a person's social capital, with benefits especially for those with low self-esteem (→  social capital, media effects on ). Ethnographic studies of Facebook use have been important in delving deeper into these trends and their roots in people's wider social networks ... log in or subscribe to read full text