I’ve been on Facebook since 2005 and it has been fun to watch my fellow students join and quickly become attached to this social utility. The reason I enjoy Facebook so much is that it has enhanced some of my real world friendships as I am more aware of what is happening in their lives, without having to call each one nightly. As students, it is easy to get bogged down in school stuff without taking time to meet up and spend time with our friends.
I don’t use it to replace my real world interaction but find I am attending social events that I discover through the News Feed of my friends, which I ordinarily might have forgotten about. I am also realising that I don’t use Facebook nearly as much as I did in 2005/2006. I don’t surf profiles anymore really and find I am spending time elsewhere online. I’m not sure why that is. Maybe I just don’t find it as fun as I used to since it went public.
What was really cool is that I ran into my first Facebook friend yesterday when I was working out in our fitness centre and it brought back memories to my first day on Facebook. At the time Facebook was accessible only to students and you could only see the students in your own college/university unless they were 1) your friend 2) their school had also been accepted into the Facebook community. When I searched the list of students from my school only one friend was on Facebook. I was very happy when she accepted my request, although I didn’t really understand anything about social networking at that time.
Yesterday, the Toronto Star has an article entitled “Toronto-based Solutions Research Group regarding Facebook use in Canada.
Despite the recent flurry of bad press over the popular social networking site’s privacy practices, nearly 8 million Canadians – more than one in four – have a Facebook profile page, according to an upcoming study by Toronto-based Solutions Research Group, highlights of which were obtained by the Star.
That makes Canada among the most plugged-in Facebook places in the world, boasting the most users of any country outside the United States and a nearly 15 per cent share of Facebook’s total subscriber base of 57 million.
The survey of 1,000 Internet users, completed in November, also found that about 85 per cent of Canadian Facebook accounts were added in the past year as the popularity of social networking has exploded on the Web.
Considering our population is about 33 million it is pretty incredible that so many Canadians have embraced Facebook over the last year. If you view the one page summary provided by the Solutions Research Group there are some interesting findings about Canadians:
- average user has 81 Facebook friends
- 57% of users 12-29 have 100+ friends
- 15% of users 30+ have 100+ friends
- 900 000 (Sept 2006) –> 7.8 million (November 2007)
I think one of the reasons why we have the most users outside of the United States is that there isn’t a made in Canada social network such as Bebo which was created in Britain or studiverzeichnis which was designed in Germany. Facebook then filled the vacuum here over the last year as it became the ‘it-thing’ for students and non-students alike.
I am curious to see what 2008 holds for Facebook users in Canada. I have met a number of students that get weirded out by friend requests from non-student strangers. I know myself I have had problems with strangers from other countries sending me repeated friend requests when it is clear that they just found my name randomly.
I would also like to read more about how Canadians are using Facebook such as memorial pages for slain teens or the reuniting of a mother with her son given up for adoption through Facebook. Does our use mirror Americans and other Western countries or do we use Facebook differently? How common is Facebook use among our French-speaking population?
Relevance: Facebook is popular in Canada. Who are the Canadians conducting research in this social networking area? Is there a Canadian equivalent to the Pew Research Centre?