Final Project Proposal

For my final project, I want to concentrate on the well-known Facebook and Myspace and its connection to age and generations. Most of us have one or even both, and I want to know how and why people use these two sites. I want to know what their age (or maturity level, priorities, etc.) have to do with their participation in Facebook and Myspace. I want to know what site these different age levels prefer and for what reasons. What do each of these two sites provide in their social circle. Now that Facebook is open to high school students, does it replace Myspace altogether or does it add on to their social networks? Does one “graduate” from one to another (like how we might have when Facebook was only open to college students)? For what reason would people use both sites (Do they post pictures on one, and keep in contact with friends on another)? Which do they feel is more popular for what generation? Do they feel an obligation to be on one or the other because other people are? How is it that we have come to the point where some of our peers say that they would give up Facebook or Myspace in observance of lent? Why do people who see each other everyday (such as high school students going to the same school) feel the need to still comment on each others pages and obsess over these sites? Is there a “cool-ness” factor in having a Facebook or Myspace? Do they read conversations between two people that have nothing to do with them? What’s considered snooping and being nosey?

For this project, I would be mostly interviewing people as my research. I will ask these questions, along with others, to people of different ages from high school students to college graduates. I even know some high school teachers who had Myspace, and want to know why they do it. There are students everywhere that check their Facebook or Myspace daily (or even more than once a day) for new comments, pictures, or friend requests, and it’s a pretty big phenomenon.