Will you be my Facebook friend?

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.