Social Network Sites: Users and Uses

Social network sites (SNSs) have rapidly become very popular, challenging even the major portals and search engines in terms of usage and commercial value. This chapter introduces key SNS issues and reviews relevant academic research from sociology, communication science, computer science, and information science. The chapter introduces a broad classification of SNS friendship and demonstrates the range of types of SNS, each with its own unique combination of functionalities and objectives. The users and uses for SNSs are also varied, both in terms of the broad range of reasons for using a site and also, at the microlevel, in terms of the understanding of the core concept of friending. The commonly discussed issues of privacy and security are reviewed, including the extent to which they are taken seriously by users and SNS designers. New forms of electronic communication seem to always generate their own new language varieties and SNS language is briefly discussed. The chapter is supported by a series of MySpace investigations to illustrate key points and give additional information. Finally, the potential for programmers to create small applications to run within SNSs or with SNS data is discussed and speculations made about future developments.