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Facebook Research Paper

Decent Essays

Facebook is currently largest social networking site in the world based on monthly unique visitors – attracting 130 million unique visitors every day (Alexa Inc. 2012). The site’s popularity exploded in 2007 and it bypassed its social networking rival, MySpace, in April 2008 (Phillips 2007). Over the last few years Facebook has impacted people’s social lives in various ways. With its availability on modern smart phones, Facebook enables users to continuously stay in touch with friends, relatives and peers wherever they are in the world as long as they have internet access. It can also group people together who share beliefs and interests and has been known to even reunite lost family members and friends through its enormous social reach …show more content…

Several news stories have suggested that using Facebook can lead to higher instances of divorce and infidelity (Gardner, 2010), but the claims have been questioned by other commentators. One thing Microsoft, Google and Facebook have in common is that they collect about as much data from each of their visitors as each other, according to an internet marketing research company (Alexa 2012). Users are concerned about the privacy of their personal information, even after the Facebook security expanded its efforts to reduce the risks to the users’ privacy. Facebook Beacon was launched in Nov 2007, a service that was ultimately a failed attempt at advertising specific products to a user’s friends depending on what known purchases that friend had made. As of last month, Facebook has begun to more closely examine the usage of its user data. Facebook accepted that it had deceived users by failing to keep certain promises regarding privacy, and agreed to settle charges laid by the United States Federal Trade Commission. In the realm of education, researchers and facilitators are interested in the effects of social media – especially Facebook – on university students. Previous studies have example the relationship between the use of Facebook and engagement levels of students related to academic outcomes, but were limited in their outcome by their evaluation of Facebook usage in how they measured engagement. One specific study (as follows) filled this

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