Facebook Friendship: Are Facebook “Friends” Really Your Friends?

1. Facebook Friendship: Are Facebook “Friends” Really Your Friends? Principle Investigator: Elizabeth DeMarco Faculty Supervisor: Scott Johnson Department of Rhetoric and Communication Studies

2. Survey Sample Size *9 Responses were excluded because they indicated that the corresponding participants did not understand the question or gave dishonest answers Gender Breakdown

3. Survey Demographics Year in School Race

4. Survey Results

5. Facebook Uses

6. Survey Results

7. Survey Results

8. Main Focus Group Finding • University of Richmond students are, first and foremost, using Facebook to communicate or keep in touch with friends • Without Facebook, students might have lost touch with old friends. • But for anyone that is not and was never a friend, Facebook is a database of people they know (either directly or through a mutual friend)

9. Comparing Levels of Friendship

10. Why did you open your FB account? • Common focus group responses*: • To keep in touch with friends and family • All of my friends were making one • I kept hearing it was better than MySpace • To meet people before I came to college *These responses are “common” in the sense that they were mentioned in at least 2 of the 3 focus groups

11. How frequently do you use Facebook? • Consensus • Every day, several times per day • 2 types of users • Consistently check FB • Check FB whenever they get a notification on smart phone • Other themes • Part of routine • Users rarely spend large amount of times on FB at once “If I get on the Internet, I go to my email and then Facebook” “It’s always a tab [when a web browser is open]”

12. Who, besides your offline friends, are in your FB network? • “Classmates” • “Friends of friends” • “People I’ve met” • “People I met on vacation” • “Family” • “Teammates” • “People I babysit for”

13. Why keep peripheral friends on FB? “Well there’s just some people from my high school who ask to be my friend and I’m like ‘okay, we’ll be friends on Facebook, but I don’t talk to you in real life.’ It’s nice to have them there just in case, but there’s never gonna be a ‘just in case’ because we aren’t friends” “I hardly ever unfriend people because for me, it’s just kind of a number” “It’s nice to see what they’re doing every once in a while”

14. Why not reject people who are not your friends? “I just feel bad saying no to some people. Because we know each other, but if you say no, it’s a lot stronger than if you say yes, I guess. Because there’s really no reason to say no to someone. It’s kind of insulting to the person and you don’t want to insult them; you just don’t have a need to be their friend on Facebook”

15. Is FB Changing The Strength of Relationships? “There’s two different sides. There’s a bunch of people that you know but then Facebook reinforces ties in your real life, like with your best friends and stuff cuz I know they’re at college. It makes it that much easier to talk to them and stay in contact with them and keep your friendships strong. But then there’s plenty of people that you have weaker ties with because you don’t talk to them in real life”

16. Is FB Changing The Strength of Relationships? “I know that a lot of my friends from high school that have gone to college, I wouldn’t keep in touch with them if it weren’t for Facebook, so I feel like I’m maintaining quality relationships. But then, on campus, even if I’m not friends with someone, I know who they are based on their picture that comes up. So I feel like I’m more familiar with the student body in that regard, but they’re weak in that if I have some friends on Facebook, I pass by them and we won’t say hi”

17. Is FB Changing the strength of Relationships? “I think there’s more ties, but you couldn’t say they’re weaker because they would not have been existing really…It’s not making what wouldn’t have been there anyway weaker”

18. Is Facebook Changing the Strength of Relationships? “I think it can. It’s definitely true that there are more ties, but it’s kind of what you make it. Then yeah, there are really weak ties. But if it’s people that you actually talk to a lot and see round a lot you can make closer ties with them than”

19. Is FB Expanding the Definition of Friendship? “It’s not expanding the definition of friend so much as it’s its own category because friends in real life, we’ve already established those qualities, but some of the people you’re Facebook friends with just don’t have all of those qualities”

20. So Are Facebook Friends synonymous with Acquantainces? “No. You’re not going to call them acquaintances. You just don’t do that. It has a neutral connotation if not a negative connotation, as compared to friend, which has a positive connotation.”

21. What Makes FB Friends Different? “I feel like Facebook friends- if something exciting happens in my life, they’re only interested in it because they’re bored and want some sort of entertainment but my real friends are interested because they’re interested in my life” “Some of them I don’t even talk to”

22. What’s the difference? “I think Facebook friends and friends are completely different things. When someone says Facebook friends, I think of people I don’t really know and don’t really consider my friends, but then if you say friend, it says that you have a relationship outside of Facebook.”

23. What’s the Difference? “I think also in Facebook you communicate differently than you would in real life because you’re writing, and I feel like a lot of times people. People I talk to on Facebook aren’t the people I’m really friends with in real life” “It’s more like passing on things. Like pieces of information rather than relating to another person”