Will you be my Facebook friend?
Citation
Haspels, Melanie (2008). Will you be my Facebook friend? In Proceedings: 4th Annual Symposium: Graduate Research and Scholarly Projects. Wichita, KS: Wichita State University, p.47-48
Abstract
Launched in February 2004 by students at Harvard University, Facebook is an online social networking site
initially designed to replace the University’s paper student directory. Following its launch, it quickly spread to college
campuses across the nation, quickly becoming a popular way for college students to maintain ties. However, does the fact
that students are spending more and more time on their computers “facebooking” one another affect face-to-face
communication, specifically on small, residential college campuses? Through focus group research at a small, residential
college in Kansas, three themes emerged as to the effect of Facebook on a small, residential college campus: Facebook
assists in maintaining long-distance relationships, Facebook helps to keep a person updated on the lives of those around
them, and Facebook builds face-to-face relationships. These themes, supported by Charles Berger and Richard Calabrese’s
Uncertainty Reduction Theory, demonstrate that Facebook can assist in building face-to-face communication on small,
residential college campuses.
Description
Fifth Place winner of oral presentations at the 4th Annual Symposium on Graduate Research and Scholarly Projects (GRASP) held at the Hughes Metropolitan Complex, Wichita State University, April 25, 2008.
Research completed at the Elliott School of Communication, Fairmount College of Liberal Arts and Sciences