I sent out a message with questions to 126 people on Facebook and I received 20 answers back from 11 woman and 9 men in the age of 18 -39 within the time of 3 weeks. Out of the 20 participants, 15 of the participants in these questionnaires were in their 30´s. Most of the participants use social media about 1-3 hours a day. They used Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn or forums as the essential social media and they separate the social media from one another and the amount of content they shared in the different ones. LinkedIn and Twitter is mostly used within the participants professional area while other sites like e.g. Facebook is to connect, socialize and pleasure.
The main goal of this questionnaire was to get an understanding of which social media is mostly used by the participants and how much time they use it daily, as well as how it affects their life to the positive/negative and how private they consider themselves to be on the Internet.
A really interesting observation over the answers was especially the question of how the social media has been affecting the participant’s life and if they could give a concrete example of both the advantages and disadvantages they have experienced. 80% of the participants agreed in that the biggest advantage was to be able to keep in touch with old friends or long-distance friends as well as the comfort to be updated about what is happening in their friends lives. Another advantage with social media today is the possibility to find long lost friends. A backside might be that people you don’t want to have a contact with can find you easily. Another advantage some of the participants mention is the possibilities to find contacts for work, and find out information when needed.
I was surprised to not get more answers when it came to the disadvantages or the negative side of the social media world. One participants wrote that her ex have found a way to follow her through Facebook with help of her friends Facebook, and then he use everything she has been saying against her. Another one said that it is important to keep a track on what you write and that it is important to find the balance, if you don’t, it might hit back on you sooner or later. One participant mentioned how an update creates conflicts between partners because the partner might feel that he or she finds out essential information as a second part, after everybody else.
The response I received about how private they consider themselves online was a mixture of opened and private. Most of the participants considered themselves pretty opened but careful about what information they shared and for whom. It was only about 5% that said not private at all, whole the rest of the participants showed a conscious awareness of what content they share to protect their integrity.
When I reflect over the responses I received I can see that their answers is what I expected. Social media is mostly used for connectivity and keep in contact, as well as keeping update with what is happening in our social network. I also feel that the awareness for the backsides with social media is slim and that the positive advantages are pushing them aside. With the responses over how private they are, I feel that they seem aware of what they share and to whom. The conclusion I get from that is that everybody is sharing information to that extent of how they want to be seen by others. In some cases there are people that can share about the negative things happening in their life, but most people keep that for themselves, because they don’t want to share to private information to the whole online population. This also shows an indication that even though people don’t reflect on the backsides, there is a silent indication that social media is not safe enough yet, and still not researched enough for us to trust it a 100%.
