4. Discussion
This study investigated howmuch time young adults spend using the social networking site Facebook, why they do so, and how
they interact with each other on this website. Regardless of how busy students were during the week that they participated in our
study, Facebook was part of their everyday experiences, with students reporting approximately 30 min of Facebook use each day.
This amount of time is similar to the daily use of 10–30 min reported by Ellison and colleagues (2007) who used a multiple-choice
question to index time use. Taken together, these results indicate that Facebook use has been integrated into the daily lives of
young adults in the U.S.
Our second question focused on reasons why college students use Facebook. Consistent with previous research (Valkenburg et
al., 2005), oneway that young adults use online applications is to facilitate social relationships. In the present study, 85% of college
students used Facebook to communicate with friends, both on campus and from their former high schools. Facebook is clearly a
peer-to-peer communication network. College students did not use Facebook to keep up with parents, nor with strangers. Only
about 9% of our young adult sample used Facebook to make new friends, a finding consistent with those reported by Ellison et al.
(2007) for college students, but which differs from findings with teens, about half of whom use social networking sites to make
newfriends (Lenhart & Madden, 2007). These findings suggest that teens search for newfriends on social networking sites more so
than young adults do.
The breadth and importance of the peer group during early adulthood is magnified by the number of Facebook friends that
students, particularly young women, reported. Overall, young adults reported an average of 358 Facebook friends, with young
women reporting a staggering 401 friends while young men reported 269 friends. Offline, individuals report an average of 150
friends out of which only five friendships are considered close (Randerson, 2007). When asked what they thought was the most
interesting part of using Facebook, students responded that they could stay in touch and reconnect with friends, which is facilitated
by the far reaching networks made possible by the world-wide web. They were also interested in how people presented
themselves, the latter being an indicator of identity.
A common task of emerging adulthood is to determine one's own identity with respect to romantic relationships, work, and
world views (Arnett, 2000). Facebook provides a unique opportunity for students to display their identities. Religion, political
ideology, and work, which are traditional markers of adolescent and young adult identity (Arnett, 2000; Erikson, 1963), were
reported by college students as important in expressing who they were. Interestingly, however, they more often reported that
media preferences such as favorite music, favorite movies, and favorite books were important in conveying their identity. Similarly,
students reported that photos often helped them express who they were. In fact, posting photos was amajor activity performed by
college students and, as previously found for adolescents (Lenhart & Madden, 2007), young adult females posted more
photographs than young adult males did in our study. When young adults untagged photos, both males and females did this
because they did not like how they looked. Photos and their rapid dissemination to students' online profiles reflect the important
role played by technology in the development of youth identity.
Gathering feedback from peers and strengthening the bonds of friendship are also part of the developmental challenges of
emerging adulthood. In fact, some researchers argue that self-disclosure with peers may promote personal identity and intimacy
(Buhrmester & Prager, 1995). Because students are using Facebook to facilitate pre-established relationships, they are interacting
primarily with people they know and trust. In such cases, self-disclosure about important personal issues is probably more likely to
occur than it is in conversations with strangers. If so, the communication with friends that occurs on Facebook may help young
adults resolve key developmental issues that may be present during emerging adulthood, including both identity and intimacy
development. To the extent that this is true, Facebook use may have a positive effect on development. This premise is supported by
recent findings that college students with less clearly defined self-concepts were more likely to use the Internet, suggesting that
young adults may turn to the Internet as a tool for identity development (Matsuba, 2006). It is likely that if youth are self-disclosing
to peers on Facebook, it is probably in the form of personal profile information (see Valkenburg et al., 2006). Further research is
necessary to determine if young adults are using social networking sites as a forum for self-disclosure, and, if so, what impact this
has on development.
Our final question involved how students are interacting on Facebook. Wall posts were a preferred way of interacting with
friends. Interacting with the groups that they had joined was an infrequent form of interaction, and even private exchanges with
friends occurred only “sometimes.” In fact, exchanges with friends in a public wall space were twice as frequent as one-on-one
private exchanges with friends and considerably more frequent than interacting with the groups they had joined. Inside jokes and
catching up with each other were the typical topics of wall posts. As one person noted, wall posts can be written quickly, which
illustrates the fast-paced nature of online information exchanges. The public display of information is similar to those found on
online bulletin boards and chat rooms where exchanges of information about a wide range of topics, including content that is
relevant to identity construction, are taking place (Subramanyam, Greenfield, & Tynes, 2004; Suziki & Calzo, 2004).
Our findings also suggest that the communication exchanges of the past are expanding in the information age. Although
interactions sometime take place, lurking and observing others' actions, such as reading the news feed about what friends are
doing or looking at others' profiles or pictures, were far more common than posting information or even updating profiles. Onestudent described the experience as “creepy” when she had not seen or interacted with a friend for years, but she had read about a
recent development in that friend's personal life on her Facebook profile. Lurking has also been reported as a frequent activity on
teen bulletin boards, with users expending more time looking at others' posts than they do writing their own posts (Suziki & Calzo,
2004). Although interactivity is touted as a hallmark of newer media, online users spend a considerable amount of time just
watching others. Our findings highlight the powerful interest we have in observing others (Bandura, 1997).
In the past,we observed television and movie characters, but newer technologies and interfaces such as Facebook allow users to
become the producers and stars of their productions as they create their own profiles and observe those of others. Put anotherway,
adolescents and young adults are creating and disseminating material on social networking sites using a one-to-many
communication style, similar to the way television and radio have been used in the past but with the novel capacity for personal
control and creation of the content being “broadcast.” This unique communication style blends the interactive qualities of newer
media with the observational ones of the past. Thus, social networking sites like Facebook allowa coming together of observational
and interactive media, which may become even more pronounced as students create videos such as those found on Youtube.com.
At an applied level, the popularity of social networking applications could make them a powerful cognitive tool if adapted for
academic pursuits and career goals. For example, colleges and universities could take advantage of the new ways that students are
communicating with one another. Although interactive educational options such as Blackboard exist, social networking sites are
rarely used for academic purposes. Websites could be established where students could interact on an academically-focused
networking site, with students posting on walls and professors joining in on these discussions. Profiles could include favorite
courses and career goals. Alumnae could visit these sites to help current students find appropriate internships, job placements, and
information about postgraduate academic and job experiences. These kinds of experiences might be engaging for students and
open new ways of academically-oriented interactions where professors and alumnae could discover more about the students'
interests, and students, in turn, might express and develop more intellectual facets of their lives.
There are several limitations of this study. First, only one type of social networking site was assessed here. It may be that other
sites are used in differentways, particularly since Facebook originated as a college site and has attracted many college-age students.
The developmental issues that young adults bring to bear during their college years may well be different from those of younger
students and non-college young adults. Second, this study assesses a specific group, primarily students attending a private
university, who may differ from other Internet users in important ways, such as their easy access to fast Internet connections.
Uploading numerous pictures, for example, would take far more time with a slow computer connection. Third, this study was
descriptive, rather than experimental. However, it is difficult to manipulate the use of social networking sites that are so
commonplace in U.S. culture. Finally, a more typical diary rese