Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship

others help strangers connect based on shared interests, political views, or activities.

(1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary from site to site.

networking is possible on these sites, it is not the primary practice on many of them, nor is it what differentiates them from other forms of computer-mediated communication (CMC).

rticulate and make visible their social networks.

"latent ties" (Haythornthwaite, 2005) who share some offline connection.

social network sites."

Facebook began supporting other schools

intimate, private community.

differentiates Facebook is the ability for outside developers to build "Applications" which allow users to personalize their profiles and perform other tasks, such as compare movie preferences and chart travel histories.

Currently, there are no reliable data regarding how many people use SNSs,

companies are blocking their employees

accessing SNSs in schools and libraries (H.R. 5319, 2006; S. 49, 2007).

"the world is composed of networks, not groups" (Wellman, 1988, p. 37). The introduction of SNS features has introduced a new organizational framework for online communities, and with it, a vibrant new research context.

"public displays of connection" serve as important identity signals that help people navigate the networked social world, in that an extended network may serve to validate identity information presented in profiles.

Friending function can operate as a catalyst for social drama.

"Friends" on SNSs are not the same as "friends" in the everyday sense; instead, Friends provide context by offering users an imagined audience to guide behavioral norms.

Facebook is used to maintain existing offline relationships or solidify offline connections, as opposed to meeting new people.

Facebook users engage in "searching" for people with whom they have an offline connection more than they "browse" for complete strangers to meet.

scholarship has examined how students feel about having professors on Facebook (Hewitt & Forte, 2006) and how faculty participation affects student-professor relations

networked practices mirror, support, and alter known everyday practices, especially with respect to how people present (and hide) aspects of themselves and connect with others.

Richer, ethnographic research on populations more difficult to access (including non-users) would further aid scholars' ability to understand the long-term implications of these tools.

esearch suggests that popular narratives around sexual predators on SNSs are misleading—cases of unsuspecting teens being lured by sexual predators are rare (Finkelhor, Ybarra, Lenhart, boyd, & Lordan, 2007). Furthermore, only .08% of students surveyed by the National School Boards Association (2007) met someone in person from an online encounter without permission from a parent.