Matt Streit's CI 5472 Blog

I am a total rookie to Facebook. I heard of it, but never visited the site. In terms of social networking sites (like Facebook and MySpace), I honestly don’t see the appeal. I think that makes me an unbiased, but oblivious, observer. Specifically, I decided to study my wife’s St. Thomas Law School “Class of 2008� group – which she (Angie) is a part of. She was my one interviewee and my only assistance at navigating through the site that is called Facebook.

Let’s set up the basics:

1) Setting: Facebook, St. Thomas Law “Class of 2008� private group
2) Tasks: To understand the appeal and uses of Facebook, specifically to St. Thomas third-year law students
3) Methods of Analysis: Observation of individual Facebook pages and direct interviews with one “Class of 2008� member (Angie Streit). This is basically an “immersion� research study based on mainly one person’s (mine) viewpoint.

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Some of the specific practices I observed:

First, I clicked to see all 63 of the group members and their “introductory� pictures. Most of the pictures were quite flattering. Some wore formal attire in their picture, many men wore sunglasses, and many women flashed large smiles. Others went for the “goofy� introductory picture showing alcohol, baby pictures, gang signs, or some combination of all three. These did not seem to be the mature law students I was expecting. Didn’t they know that prospective employers check these sites?

Next, I clicked on a few of the profiles and dug a little deeper. The primary Facebook profile page has a plethora of information on it. I would assume that most people immediately check out the “Friend� information on the side. A listing of Mutual Friends is first listed, but then a Total Friends amount is given. My wife Angie told me that certain law school students are very competitive about having more “Facebook friends� than other students. I remember back in my wife’s first year of law school how she talked about constant “Friend requests� from her classmates so that they could bump up their totals.

The right column of individual profiles can get quite long, especially for the die-hard Facebook user. Favorite movies & TV shows, relationship status, favorite quotes, gifts (you can send cupcakes to each other!)…good grief, why do people spend so much time on this site? Actually, it can be quite addicting. Everything is linked. I started clicking through the links and ended up from one page to the next, and slowly realized that it seems like everyone has a Facebook page and I’m the one left out. OK, back to more “critical analysis�.

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Some shared social agendas:

First, there’s the “Wall.� This is the super-long discussion board with posts from “friends.� I think the agenda of the Wall is just as much to show off the person who’s doing the posting as it is for communication. The replies seem more staged and restricted than an individual one-to-one email. Angie Streit says that she is also careful what she says on the Wall. For example, gossip is usually out of the question on the Facebook Wall. Some things are saved for actual face-to-face communication still.

Another shared social agenda that likely shows up more with the law students is the publicizing of oneself. It seems like these law students are treading a fine line between displaying themselves as “party-people� and “prime candidates for employment based on the number of groups they belong to.� There may be a “work hard, play hard� mentality among law students and law careers.

There was not much of a shared social stance when it came to religion. Although all of the members attend a Catholic school, some were Catholic, some were “developing Christians�, but most listed no religious views on their profile page at all. More political views were listed, but these were just general “liberal�, “moderate�, or “conservative� labels. In-depth political and religious discussion was virtually nonexistent. I think law students, even more than the general public, do not want to be constrained by a label. Not so much because they want a strong non-conformist identity, but more likely because they are concerned about fitting in with future employers and friends. I am making a hypothesis with this statement, and Angie partially backs up my idea, but she has her doubts.

The last critical analysis piece I’ll focus on is how this specific Class of 2008 St. Thomas Law group creates a “space of difference.� The “About Me� section of the profiles was especially reflective in this regard. Many law students described their upcoming graduation and current/future jobs in this section. The members portray themselves as humble in many ways (by not taking themselves too seriously, etc.), but they also want to advertise the fact (especially to their non-law-school-friends) that they have almost completed a difficult achievement (law school), and possibly communicate that they are about to make much more money than most of their non-law-school-friends. Angie Streit had no comment about my last hypothesis.

Overall, I thought Facebook wasn’t so bad. It does serve a role of communication that wasn’t possible ten years ago. The integration of photos, discussion, and links to other friends/sites does create a different picture of a person than the one you see in real life. I was a little disturbed how Facebook makes it seem that one’s entire essence can be distilled into a few photos and lists of “favorites�. But I may end up just swallowing my pride, set up an account, and send a Cupcake to a few of my friends.