When I first started using different social media technology tools my motive was primary to have fun, although msn – one of the first tools I ever used – were also used in purpose of getting in contact with study friends in order to make school assignment processes easier and faster.
I believe that social media technologies had not been a genuinely relevant part of my life until I joined social network sites such as MySpace and later Facebook. Two years ago I decided to join Facebook and today, watching and updating me and my friends’ daily statuses, have become a routine. So, connecting with friends and family is the main motive for my usage and my increased loyal behavior towards social media technology. When I think of it, it is only a few single people I know that do not have a Facebook account. As of a few weeks ago, also my parents and a lot of friends’ parents have also joined.
One thing that I find astonishing is the power an online network has on many peoples everyday life. I am actually starting to notice that people who do not have a Facebook account are often being overlooked when people send invitations to real life activities. In fact, my mum joined Facebook only after my brother had forgot to invite her to his birthday party, due to the fact that he had only invited people using Facebook, neglecting (or at least, not taking into account people who did not have an account). Hence, not being active on major online networks is affecting peoples everyday offline lives.
Right before I joined Facebook I had become a loyal Wikipedia user, whenever I was doing research for any important subject I used this site and was amazed by its applicability. Consequently, this tool is mainly used for study purposes. I have also noticed that the number of my visits on the Wikipedia site is less than the number of times that I visit Facebook and other more direct-networking sites. Although I actually may find Wikipedia’s services more valuable than Facebook’s, I might act more habitually loyal towards social leisure sites such as Facebook and MySpace. Also as Marco Turpeinen mentioned, I have only once contributed and written a text on a subject on Wikipedia, and this was only done because I was handed the exercise in a KTH-course. On Facebook, on the other hand, I contribute and update my profile on, sort of a, daily basis.
Accordingly, the main social technologies I use – Facebook and Wikipedia –are used in support of different motives and my usage behavior is also very different between the two sites. This also proves that just a fraction of readers actually have to be active contributors in order to create a value-added site, like in the case of Wikipedia.
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