Social networking, which first started out as something small that only a few people used, has turned into a social phenomenon that millions of people all around the world partake in. According to Lehnhart and Madden (2007), fifty-five percent of teenagers online use and create online social networking profiles and sites. The use of blogs has also sky rocketed and social researchers are now devoting a lot of time in trying to understand why so many teenagers participate in social networking and blogs. They are also trying to figure out how the content adolescents provide in blogs relate to adolescent development, peer relationships, and emotional well-being (Williams & Merten, 2008). They argue that teen profiles can be analyzed to get a better understanding of the topics mentioned before.
Social networking sites are ideal for social researchers because any one can access this information with an Internet connection and the right URL. It allows social scientists to observe human behavior with out ever coming into contact with the individual, never bothering them, and never letting them know they are being studied, the ideal situation. These social scientists get to observe every part of human behavior without ever seeing an individual when they read over their social networking sites. Social scientists could form well-developed profiles of users because these sites contain an individuals personal thoughts, feeling, beliefs, and activities. They also contain information on romantic relationships, friends, parents, substance use, sexuality, popular culture, eating disorders, school, depression, conflicts, and self-harm (Williams & Merten, 2008). Never before had scientists been able to study individuals so easily. Teens post as much information about themselves as they want and it varies from individual to individual. However, once they post this information, basically anyone can access it and get somewhat of an understanding of the individual.
Social networking sites, especially blogs, have become a standard form of teenage communication comparable to cell phones, email, or instant messaging (Mee, 2006). However, there are differences. Blogs are accessible at anytime, from anyplace, they leave a trail of observable dialogue that can be printed and stored, and they incorporate advances multimedia components (Willams & Merten, 2008). Research needs to be done to show us why exactly adolescents join up these sites and what factors dictate how much information they put on them and how personal they get. One fact is known though, adolescents create these profiles for different reasons and they become as important to them as they want them to be.
As mentioned before, only about half of teenagers online are part of social networking sites. The numbers are defiantly rising due to the popularity of blogging sites like Facebook and Twitter and social researchers are scrambling to know everything about users of these sites, specifically how they affect adolescents. Because of the relatively recent upsurge of this phenomenon, future research will need to answer all the questions posed earlier and when this happens we will be able to address any problems that we find with adolescents on these social networking sites; as well as better understand youth online.
