Are Social Networks for Children?
Posted by Nick O'Neill on April 18th, 2008 10:47 AMFred Wilson seems to think so. According to him, “The blogging revolution is the adult social network whereas Facebook style social networking is for teens and college kids.” This is just a generalized assertion with no statistical backing. Do adults comprise the majority of the bloggers? In this country they represent the majority of the population but I’m not so sure that they represent the majority of bloggers.
For most bloggers, writing is a self-centered activity. People write about their daily activities, their thoughts on life, and why their boyfriend or girlfriend broke up with them. People definitely write about other issues but I would guess that most bloggers are not as connected as Fred would imagine. I started thinking about this for a little bit and honestly at a certain point are social networks really necessary? It’s an extremely useful tool for those looking to build their network but how about those that aren’t?
According to Facebook the average number of users on the site are connected to 100 people. Does the novelty of social networks eventually wear out? How long can we collect contacts a network without getting overwhelmed by the noise? My Salesforce account and LinkedIn account are both two places where I’m free from the noise. Facebook on the other hand keeps me up to date on the happenings of 1,000 of my closest friends.
Do you think blogging is for adults? How frequently do you login to Facebook and other social networks?
April 18th, 2008 at 11:16 am
Currently I am a heavy user, and log into Twitter, Facebook and other social media/software tools and sites at least once a day, and sometimes more than once a day. At work I am working on collaboration and social networking for the enterprise, so need to be up to date (although this seems impossible).
Teen blogging is something that I have not encountered yet, I think the younger users are more on IM and MySpace.
Cheers, Marc
April 19th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
Pew Internet does monitor the usage levels of both teen and adult bloggers, and their data show there is a teen blogging presence, albeit much smaller than the adult population. I believe most social networks are for the under 30s, and research shows more than half of 12-17 year olds have accounts with at least one social network.
In my research on college students’ Facebook use, I found the vast majority of respondents log into the site multiple times a day. Personally, I tend to keep Facebook and Twitter open in tabs all day so I can check for updates at my leisure, but I am kind of obsessive about it.