This thesis doesn’t attempt to add to the discussion on which would be the most appropriate name of the research field of this study. It is briefly presented on the literature review that some researchers call it information behavior, information seeking behavior or information practices. However, to be practical and also for the sake of uniformity throughout this thesis, the term information behavior is adopted.
A simple definition of information behavior is adopted, inspired by Wilson (2000). So, information behavior is defined as the sum of the ways that a human interacts with an information system which involves information use, access and seeking.
The other main definition to be addressed in this study is social networks. This term is used relatively loosely to encompass any Web 2.0 sites or applications which allow the publication or posting of user generated content and also interactions between users.
In this thesis, the phrase social networks are mostly used to name the types of web applications like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, Tumblr, among others. In some instances and because of the context, the phrase “Web 2.0 social networks” is used as well, in order to avoid confusion. There are very few instances when this text is referring to “real world” networks of people. In these cases, the phrase social networks has been used as well, but the context makes it clear enough to distinguish them from the Web 2.0 social networks.