The Many Faces of Facebook

image You probably know that Facebook is the most widely used social networking site in the world, far more popular than Twitter and LinkedIn (eBizMBA, 2015). But you may be surprised to learn that 82% of Facebook’s billion-plus users reside outside of North America (Facebook, 2015). Why do people in different parts of the world use this American invention? Do they use Facebook to rekindle an old friendship, create a new alliance, or spy on an ex?

Curious about patterns of Facebook use across time and culture, a team of European researchers set out to gather data from users in different countries (Vasalou, Joinson, & Courvoisier, 2010). With the help of Facebook walls and networks, they recruited 423 Facebook users from the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Greece, and France. Then they asked the participants to complete an online questionnaire and conducted a statistical analysis of the responses. Their findings were intriguing.