1.

Online Social Network

Why is Facebook so popular among students?

2. Literature Review:
According to Boyd and Ellison (2007) One of the most popular social network sites is
Facebook, which was designed in 2004 originally for the students of the Harvard
University.With it´s continuous growth the network was enlarged to other Colleges and High
Schools and is now accesible to everyone in all over the world with a valid email-address.
Today 150.000 million users worldwide are registered on Facebook and most of them are
students. “The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information
through the sociol graph, the digital mapping of people´s real-world sociol connections.”
(Facebook, ?)

The GenX2Z College Study (Schaffhauser, 2008) which is undertaken every year among
1,000 US college students showed that 80% of the students are using Facebook and 74% of
them accessing the site at least once a week. The increasing popularity is associated with the
rising degree of esteem of blogging, whereby it´s claimed that students would tend to blog
four times more then adults.
“A blog describes an on-line diary or frequently updated personal web page. Many “bloggers”
allow readers to comment on the original post, thereby allowing audience discussions.”
(Blogs Canada, 2007)

Tabitha Miller (2005) states that Facebook would allow freshmen students to make
connections with future roommates and friends before they even start college and that the
sociol network site would also help to keep in contact with old ones as well. In his article the
Spokeperson for Facebook takes the following facts into consideration to be one of the causes
for the site´s growth: "Parties and groups can be organized more efficiently, people are able to
discover interests they share in common with acquaintances or friends; people are able to see
details about girls or guys they find cute”.

3. Research Strategy:
To explore the popularity of Facebook the used epistemology of this research is interpretive as
it asks to “understand differences between human beings in our role as social actors” of the
researcher. (Lewis, Saunders & Thornhill 2007:106). For this study it was helpful to
understand the different incitements of the students to join the community of Facebook.
The approach of this research is inductive as it is a qualitative study which is based on a
grounded theory. Referring to Goulding (2002) this strategy helps to “predict and explain
behaviour”, which is supportive for the examination and interpretation of student´s behaviours
referring the usage of the social network site. By testing the target group related to their surf
attitudes on this web page, a conclusion for the popularity of Facebook is possible to create.
Furthermore the source of the data is secondary and multiple as information is collected from
books, journals and online platforms.

4. Primary data collection

Due to the fact that this research is qualitative a semi-structure interview was designed to ask
a random selected group of students about their use of Facebook and their activities on the
web page.

Question1:
What is the main reason for you to be registered on Facebook?

Question2:
Using what you have said before, what makes Facebook favourable for you compared to other
social network sites?

Question 3:
With what applications/tools you spent your time while surfing in this site?

Question 4:
Approximately how many friends do you have in Facebook?

50 or less
51-100
101-200
201-300
300 or more

Question 5:
Could you please rank the importance of Facebook for you compared to other web sites on
this scale (1 is less important and 5 most important)?

1 2 3 4 5

Question 2 is designed in order to explore the different reasons about what makes Facebook
favouble for students compared to other social net work sites. The answers of this question
show what students expect from the usage of this site and therefore why they use it. It ´s
interesting to see on what things students set values by choosing an online social network site
to be registered in.

Question number 3 will provide information about the most used applications/tools while
surfing in Facebook which is useful to know in order to understand the interests of the
students. The most common used tool/application could represent the competitive advantage
of Facebook, what makes it popular compared to other social network sites . Additionally it´s
important to be informed about what the students spend their time with while surfing on the
page. If they log in mainly to be informed about certain things or if for them the site
represents a place of entertainment. The different activities deliver information about the
variety what students can find on Facebook. Most common activities can be related one of the
causation of the popularity of the web site.

Question 4 is designed to find out with how many persons the people stay in contact though
the network. An information what is useful to judge the engangement of the registered
persons on Facebook. Small number of friends can be related to a low rate of activity on the
page and the other way around

5. As the research is qualitative, a semi-structured interview was designed for collect mainly
qualitative data. For this study this type of data is useful for analysing facts such as the
behaviour and interests of the students. A semi-structured interview allows the understanding
of the meaning and is essential for a research with an interpretive approach, as this approach
requires the understanding of meanings of participants from their point of view (Lewis,
Saunders & Thornhill 2007). By using questions in which the questioneds respond whith their
own words and emphasises qualitative information can be interpreted more clearly.

6 a.) The results of the quantitative data of the interviews are showed in the following
diagramms. The first graph shows how many friends the repsondents approximately have in
Facebook, whereby each bar represents one questioned. The findings are that 2 of the 6
respondents declared to have 50 or less friends on the web site, one indicated to have 51-100
friends and the other one 101-200. The remained 2 respondents quoted the number of their
friends between 201 and 300. The results show that the students average number of friends on
Facebook beträgt ….

300
250 50 or less
200 50 or less
150 51-100
100 101-200

50 201-300
201-300
0
Respondents

The Second diagramm reflects the importance of Facebook for the respondents compared to
other websites. No one of the respondents indicated Facebook as not or low important for
them. At least the site is medium important for 3 of the respondents. One of the questioned
quoted Facebook as a very imporant site compared to other ones, and for two students it´s the
most important web page on the internet. By these 2 diagrams you can conclude that for
students with a high number of friends Facebook has a high importance..

4 Medium im portant
Medium im portant
3
Medium im portant
2
Very im portant
1 Most im portant
Most im portant
0
Questioned

b.) The qualitativ data shows that all of the questioned admitted that the main reason for their
registration on Facebook is to stay in contact with their friends, 4 of them pointed out the
communication with their friends from abroad.
Furthermore commen responses were recevied at question 2 were two respondents caused the
easy usage of the web site as a fact what makes it favourable compared to other social
network sites. Other common reasons for the preference are the high number of user and the
facileness of finding other people there. From this you conclude that the popularity of
Facebook lies among in the high interest in interacting with friends and building up new
contacts as well as the uncomplicated nature of usage what makes it easy for new members to
orient themselves on the web site.
The High degree of variety of Facebook like possibility of uploading and watching pictures
and vidoes, the chat function or the play of games were common responses at question 2. The
results show that through its plurality the page offers the students an interesting platform
where they have a lot of possibilites for spending their time. However as you can see at
question 3 referring to the used applications/tools all students mentioned the chat, two of them
additionally quoted the birthday calender and other 2 students declared to use the mailservice
and the option to see other people´s pictures. The results show that the students are mainly
interested in communicating with people and to be informed about their lifes in watching their
pictures.

c.) The reliability and validity of the results has to be considered critically as the questioned
students were selected randomly and there were no differentiation between new registered
students and long members of the web site. Since data like the used application/tools or the
number of friends depend on the period of membership as members need time to adapt to the
site and its features, results can not be applied directly to the popularity of Facebook

d.) In order to improve reliability and validity the participants have to be selected through
their length of membership. Additionally it should be considered how many times the students
spend in Facebook in order to get informatiom about the intensitiy of usage.

7. The questioned weren´t offended to participate at the interview and their right to answer
was emphasized. Furthermore the data of the resondents were threatened confidentally and
there was given the option of omitting questions which they don´t want to answer. I
followed the regulations on Plagiarism and I declare that the work I am submitting does
not breach the regulations of the University.
Bibliography:

Book
Lewis P., Saunders M. & Research Methods for Business Students,
Thornhill A. 4th Edition, Financial Times Prentice Hall
London 2007

Internet

Blogs Canada(?) What is a Blog?

Retrieved 2th January 2009 from the internet:
http://www.blogscanada.ca/BlogDefinition.html

Facebook (2008) About Facebook

Retrieved 2th January 2009 from the internet:
http://ww.facebook.com/press.php

Online Journal
Boyd D.M. & Ellison N.B. Social Network Sites: Definition, History,
and
(2007) Scholarship, Journal of Computer-
Mediated Communication (updated 2007),
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.
html (accessed 9 January 2009)

Miller T. (2005) Facebook popularity continues among students

nationwide, The Daily Eastern News (updated 11
January 2005)
http://media.www.dennews.com/media/storage/
paper309/news/2005/11/01/News/Facebook.
Popularity.Continues.Among.Students.Nationwid
e-1040404.shtml (accessed 9 January 2009)

Schaffhauser D. (2008) Facebook Still No. 1 Among College Students,

Campus Technology (updated 12 November
2008)
http://campustechnology.com/Articles/2008/12/Fa
cebook-Still-No-1-Among-College-Students.aspx
(accessed 9 January 2009)