“Hey You! Just Stopping By to Say Hi!”: Communicating With Friends and Family on MySpace

Abstract

The growing popularity of social networking sites prompted the qualitative analysis of two sources of public communication within a sample of 44 MySpace profiles created by emerging adult women majoring in human development and family studies. Six major themes emerged from the comments: (1) friendly greetings/inquiries, (2) expressions of affection/encouragement, (3) suggestion/confirmation of plans, (4) personal asides/inside jokes, (5) exchanges of information/news, and (6) entertainment. In their blogs the students focused on significant relationships, school and work obligations, and their own personal philosophies. The conceptual framework of emerging adulthood was used to better understand the identity explorations of these students.

KEYWORDS:

• blogs
• emerging adulthood
• online communication
• social networking sites

Notes

Total n = 44.