Experts argue sites' purpose

To protest Facebook's addition of news feeds last week, students across the country turned to the one medium they knew best for large-scale communication and networking.

Facebook.

To voice their opinions, users logged on to the same site they were protesting. By week's end, almost 800,000 people joined a Facebook group contesting additions made by the site. Because of the strong outcry, Facebook released new privacy tools allowing users to disable their participation in the feeds.

From the customized pages of MySpace to the address book-like functions of Facebook, today's college students - also known as the Millennial generation - are all about networking. Critics call these social juggling skills this generation's downfall. But those studying online social networking contend the sites are not harming society, but are instead redefining the very essence of communication, identity and community.

CHANGING COMMUNICATION Social networking sites are adding transparency to students' social lives, said Danah Boyd, a doctoral student at the University of California-Berkeley, who studies MySpace.

"The Internet isn't bringing it out - it's just making it more public," Boyd said. "It's the kind of exposure that was building up in all other mediums. It's just been more consistent and the most social."

Part of MySpace and Facebook's attraction is their blending of private information in a public space.

"It's a weird mix between a yearbook and a bathroom wall," she said.

Social life consists of many facets and at their intersection is a black hole Facebook is able to fill.

"It's a void we never knew existed," said Fred Stutzman, a doctoral student studying Facebook at University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. "We wanted to know about everyone around us but we never could before. It has totally changed the way we view socialization. It makes us socialize more."

Critics and media reports in recent months, however, question the sites for ruining the essentials of personal communication.

"My problem with these types of sites - we are losing these social skills," Tracy Vittone, assistant director for individual events in Ball State University's Communications Studies department, said. "Technology in general, although in positive ways, has allowed us to seek out and present information better … at the same time, it's losing its human needs."

Stutzman attributes skepticism to the moral panic aspect of the social networking phenomenon, where the public's perception of a situation is far worse than it actually is. However, conversing online is not a fresh concept for Millennials, he said.

"It's not an entirely new behavior for us," he said. "Most students are used to this. That's why it works so well - it's just a different model. The notion of talking online, being with friends online is not new for [Millennials.]"

Researchers agree that students don't actively consider the sites as social networking hubs as much as they do a fun way to kill time.

Despite lacking immediate physical interaction, researchers consider time spent on Facebook as social interactivity. Students research others' profiles and, in turn, are picking up valuable information about peoples' personalities, interests, likes, dislikes and characteristics. This information is used in building trust and friendship, much like any other social encounter.

All of this, of course, can take place from a distance.

In his 58-page honors thesis, UNC-Chapel Hill senior Brett A. Bumgarner examined Facebook usage at his school. He found that most students use the site solely as a social utility, to view friends' profiles and to talk with others about the networking site. The second most popular use was as a directory, the third as a diversion and the fourth: voyeurism.

"We're all OK being stalkers," Stutzman said.

DIGITAL BODS The most appealing feature of MySpace and Facebook is how sites inherently allow individuals to experiment with identities - as often as they wish. Stutzman said more than 60 percent of his research sample had updated their Facebook profiles in the last week.

"College is the one place where you can try out a personality for a while, then ditch it," Stutzman said.

As a form of expression, the sites take individualization to new heights, allowing students to market themselves to peers, Boyd said.

"There are a lot of people who put up information about who they want to be and not who they are," she said.

The concept of students shaping their online profiles comes down to idealism, Boyd said. The people behind the profiles might not be creating fiction as much as they are trying to market a perfect perception of themselves. This trying on of personalities is similar to how people select clothes for certain occasions, Boyd said.

"It's not that you're lying because you put on a suit," Boyd said. "You're trying to impress a different sort of audience."

Just as with clothing, then, there's an opportunity for identity creation in cyberspace.

"You're always aware of the audience and what you're trying to put off," Boyd said. "You chose it in fashion. Think of profiles as digital bodies."

Identity formation also brings along the potential for true deception, but Stutzman said the incentives of grossly misrepresenting oneself on Facebook are different than they are on MySpace.

"On Facebook, there's verifiable identity," he said. "That profile is what the peer group associates with you."

Because a person's true character and personality can be tested in other ways, the potential pitfalls of fabricating a persona are not worth the benefits, Stutzman said.

Moreover, the sites also allow everyone to become someone. For people who naturally long for their 15 minutes of fame, that chance to become a public figure is appealing - especially in an exponentially growing community, Boyd said.