Pacific Standard May-June 2013 Cover

The ‘Like’ Button That Came Before Facebook

April 19, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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Talking back to our broadcast media seems to be an integral part of the early 21st century experience. Hulu is constantly asking me if a particular ad is relevant to my interests. Major news networks like CNN want me to give my opinion on breaking news stories to them via Twitter. Even here at Pacific Standard we encourage you to leave comments on stories. In the parlance of advertisers, this two-way street of media communication is called "engagement." It might seem like something that's just started popping into conversations recently, but the idea is as old as broadcasting itself. In ... Read More

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What Happens When You Die on the Internet?

April 12, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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You exist on the Internet. At least, if you're reading this you almost definitely do. You communicate with people over email. You look at photos of your ex old friends on Facebook. You follow the news, re-post the news, and hit on supermodels after playing basketball well for 15 minutes on Twitter. You maybe don't use Pinterest because you're not a sociopath. And, if not, you still probably type lots words into Google to figure out how to do things away from the computer. But if you exist, you also must die. (I realize there are like 12 of you—along with all the people who can't ... Read More

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Spreading Racism via Facebook

March 29, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
(PHOTO: AMAZE646/SHUTTERSTOCK)

Is Facebook a particularly powerful medium to spread racist messages? That’s the disturbing implication of a newly published study. “Frequent users are particularly disposed to be influenced by negative racial messages,” psychologists Shannon Rauch and Kimberley Schanz write in the journal Computers in Human Behavior. They argue these heavy users log onto the site in search of social inclusion rather than information—and as such, they’re prone to express agreement with the material they see without thinking about it too deeply. This combination of “a need to connect and an ... Read More

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Big Data, Big Brother and the ‘Like’ Button

March 12, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
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That Facebook can’t keep a secret is the secret to its profitability. Where you live, what you eat, who you date, how you spend money—what more could an advertiser ask for? As the Canadian developer Andrew Lewis has observed, “If you’re not paying for it, you’re not the customer; you’re the product.” But what if your most naked data aren’t the details you furnish directly—favorite film, religious views, alma mater—but the little slices of self you reveal every time you click the “Like” button? As it happens, what you “Like” on Facebook says a lot about who you ... Read More

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The Loneliness of TMI

February 25, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment

Lust If you indulge in Facebook, you know them: the over-sharers. The ones who post a photo for every meal, complain about the morning’s traffic, and shout into the social media abyss for someone to please, please comment on their new haircut. If you find yourself falling into a different sin at the sight of your newsfeed (ahem, wrath) then you may find comfort in a new theory—those who overshare via social media are less likely to have satisfying romantic relationships. (If you identify with the eager-to-post, it may be time to delete that last status.) Juwon Lee, a doctoral student ... Read More

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Why You Can’t Stop Perusing Your Facebook Profile

February 11, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment
(PHOTO: ALXYAGO/SHUTTERSTOCK)

How often do you check out your Facebook profile? If considering that question makes you blush—or raises the uncomfortable notion that you’re a narcissist—relax: You’re acting on an impulse that is as basic as it is benign. New research suggests that all that rereading, revising, and updating satisfies the fundamental human need to feel good about yourself, and your place in society. This reassurance and sense of security is a vital psychological resource, and Facebook may be the easiest, most convenient way to provide it yet been devised. No wonder the social network has ... Read More

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I Now Pronounce You FBO: Facebook Official

January 8, 2013 • By • Leave a Comment

A budding romance tends to follow a prescribed pattern, with dating leading to an engagement and ultimately marriage. But in further evidence that Facebook is changing the rhythms and rituals of our lives, researchers report that, at least among college students, a new marker has been added on the bumpy road of building relationships: Updating your social-network status. Or, as it is commonly called, becoming Facebook Official, or FBO. “This status is a new milestone for couples,” writes a research team led by Jesse Fox of The Ohio State University. Occurring sometime after an ... Read More

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Can Facebook Promote Safe Sex?

November 20, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
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What exactly is Facebook good for, anyway? Investigating the college antics of the office intern, perhaps, or vetting your teenage daughter’s new boyfriend; sharing Instagrams of your toddler with the in-laws, or reminding exes how happy you are with your new man who, ahem, just surprised you with a trip to Turks and Caicos. Public policy leaders have somewhat higher hopes, of course. They’d like to use Facebook to encourage organ donation, charity in the wake of disaster, even voter participation. Sheana Bull would like to use it to promote safer sex. Bull is a professor at the ... Read More

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Women Spend More Time (and Have More Friends) on Facebook

October 18, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

The founders of Facebook proudly announced a few weeks ago that the social networking site now has one billion regular users. A mind-boggling statistic, to be sure. But how, exactly, are people using the site, and what is it providing them? Recently published research suggests there may be different answers to that question for men and women. Knox College psychologist Francis McAndrew surveyed 1,026 Facebook users ranging from age 18 to 79 (the mean age was 30) and living in 54 different nations (although the largest group by far was from the U.S.). The social networkers answered a ... Read More

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Facebook at One Billion: Too Big to Fail?

October 4, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

With Zuckerberg's Blob having now engulfed 10 figures worth of followers, it's well worth reading this fascinating analysis over at Buzzfeed on "What a Billion Facebook Users Means". Writes Matt Buchanan: Facebook has spread itself across the web in a way that it underpins vast swaths of it, processing 2.7 billion Likes a day. Facebook is now officially integrated into nearly a quarter of the top 10,000 sites on the web by one count, and it's linked by nearly half of them....Ripping yourself away from Facebook is hard, and it's getting harder as it becomes more entrenched as a basic part of ... Read More

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