Student Life on the Facebook

I’ve published a new “study” of the Facebook over on my blog – it can be located at Fred’s blog. The last two studies were posted to the Ibiblog, but this one is so long I didn’t want to crosspost. Here are some key findings:

  • Freshmen make an average of 65 new friends in their first semester.
  • Freshman political orientation does not change significantly in the first semester.
  • There are over 78,000 Freshmen pictured in the Facebook
  • You can see the rest over here…

    the kids are alright

    It’s good to know that American youth are using the web like it’s interactive and not the new television.

    A recent article on the bbc says that a large portion of 12-17 year-olds are using the web to publish their ideas, share their creative endeavors and “remix” the ba-jesus out of other people’s work.

    The article also notes that kids putting stuff on the web (read the kids who are remixing stuff on the web) are more interested in copyright issues than kids who don’t. Also, of kids who download media about as many reported paying for it as reported downloading it via p2p networks. Think if it’s the same people?

    I wonder if the folks at the UNC Symposium on Intellectual Property, Creativity and the Innovation Process knew about this study.

    Lyceum private beta coming

    We’ll be announcing private beta testing of Lyceum next week. If you’d like to be one of our beta testers, please feel free to drop us a line at lyceum at ibiblio dot org.

    We’ve also rolled a new version of the Lyceum website, which should give you a little taste of what to expect from Lyceum.

    Podcast of Facebook Talk

    Brian Russell, of Audioactivism.org, has podcast Fred Stutzman’s talk on The Facebook. Check it out here! Thanks, Brian!

    The Freshman Facebook Zeitgeist

    One of the interesting things I’ve been doing with my Facebook studies (see here, here, and here for more info) is collecting data on the Freshman class over time. I believe that the Freshman can tell us a lot about technology and adoption trends, and from a broader perspective, what social and political trends may be emerging on campus. To both extents, it’s fairly easy to pull out some simple metrics on these from my collected data. I’ll present a little of that data here.

    First, who uses the Facebook

    Basing my data analysis on these UNC-provided figures, I can say with relative confidence that nearly every Freshman on campus uses TheFacebook. On day 1 of class, I was able to discover 3095 Freshman profiles (!!!). 5 weeks later, I was able to discover 3292 Freshman profiles. 88 percent of Freshmen have an active profile on the Facebook. Lets look at these trends over time:


    Click on any graph for a larger version

    This graph shows total Freshman profiles found, and the lower line in the graph indicates the 2005 Freshman profiles with no “Privacy” flags set. I’ve found that a little more than 1% of Freshmen use privacy flags. Interestingly, privacy use has declined over time, at a constant rate (Week 1: 3% privacy use; Week 3: 1.5% privacy use; Week 5: 1% privacy use). This feeds into the notion that students that do not share their profiles online are not “participating” as normal social actors.

    Interesting in this data is the “Week 4 depression”, which may represent students having buyers remorse about living so publicly. This is just a guess, though.

    How often are Freshmen using the facebook?

    One of the questions posed to me during a recent talk was “How often are students using the Facebook”, which I roughly translate to “How often are students logging in to the system, etc”. Facebook does not provide “last access” data, though it does provide “last update” information, indicating the last time the user has updated their profile. Accepting that “updating” one’s profile places a slightly higher bar on system use than simply “logging in”, I took a look at how often students are updating their profile. The results amazed me.

    Using data collected on September 27, I analyzed last update; as you can see, 2871 profiles were updated in September, with 1819 profiles updated in the last week. I was really blown away by this, so I broke out the September data by day.

    We can clearly see a trend that profiles are being updated most frequently in the days preceding the data collection. Assuming that “last update” stands in as a good proxy for system use, I believe we can safely say that students are using TheFacebook extremely frequently.

    Friend network expansion

    One of the interesting metrics we can pull out of the data is average friend network size; in doing so, we watch the obvious and interesting aggregation of a social network on campus.

    The average moves up at a fairly regular interval. For the network geeks out there, here’s data on the Freshman social network size:

    Week 1: 3095 nodes, 144,260 edges
    Week 2: 3188 nodes, 167,783 edges
    Week 3: 3241 nodes, 198,668 edges
    Week 4: 3217 nodes, 218,534 edges
    Week 5: 3292 nodes, 245,883 edges

    Freshmen political orientation

    2423 Freshmen report a political orientation in the Facebook; this is 74%, or about 3 out of ever 4 students. Reported here are some well thought out reasons why to take political orientation data in the Facebook with a grain of salt. And to that extent, I agree completely. The notion of labeling in the Facebook may be completely arbitrary; a good amount of the data in the system represents in-jokes and the like. The students use codes in the system to communicate and display in-network group strength and identity. Stepping back from that, though, I still think its interesting to see the data. And of course, it has surprised me.

    While Liberal students again outnumber Conservative students, there is suprising parity between the two factions (assuming, of course, that UNC is a liberal institution). Is this what the post-9/11 student body looks like? When political orientation becomes a face-value aspect of identity, how does it force factionization in friend-making behaviors? If we all purport to know each other’s politics, is it not hard to imagine freshmen making decisions based on this highly characteristic identity element? Please see this post for more information on this data, the pooling that goes on, etc.

    Now, for some fun

    First, I present what I’m calling the Happy Index. This is Freshmen relationship identification over time. I’ve decided to include all fields available in the Facebook, though the graph can more effectively be segregated along Single/Not-Single lines. It is interesting to see how Married and Open Relationship increase over time as the in-joke nature of the claim moves through the network. Since the network size changes each week, this is presented as a ratio of the total network.

    Finally, I analyzed what sort of websites students are identifying as their personal websites. As we might expect, the majority of personal websites claimed by students are of the photo, blog, or profile hosting nature.

    Interestingly, only six unc.edu sites were returned, with not one being a unc.edu/~ personal site. Not one freshman reports using his or her UNC provided webspace. This is alarming, but not surprising.

    For questions about this data, please contact Fred Stutzman

    New Collection: Jewish Sparks

    Title: Jewish Sparks

    URL: http://www.jewishsparks.net

    Description:
    Jewish Sparks is an educational site which contains lectures and talks from Jewish Scholars and leaders. Part of its collection includes material from the Carolina Center for Jewish Studies (UNC-Chapel Hill).

    Cal Laptop Found

    Remember that Laptop story that had everyone boogaloo over whether or not the professor could track it down in March…?

    Well, the laptop stolen from Cal Berkeley’s Sproul Hall was found yesterday. The culprit has been tracked down from a someone who tried to pawn the laptop to a eBay user in South Carolina. Here’s the details from SFGate.

    Back that data up,
    BD

    New Collection: Carolinasoul.org

    Local funk collector Jason Perlmutter recently launched Carolinasoul.org, and we couldn’t be more excited. Mr. Perlmutter has created an invaluable resource, documenting the musical legacy of Soul and Funk artists here in the Carolinas.

    Check it out!

    Notes from the Move

    New Servers (well, sort of!), New Racks (very new), New Datacenter (again, very new). Here’s pics from the ultra fun move.


    Jon Manages


    Boxes are Moved


    Boxes are Trucked


    Another View


    Don’t show this pic to OSHA


    A little art


    The new Racks

    Are you going to switch?

    I switched my permanent email address last spring…Yet, with Google’s announcement of a new IM service, it made me wonder…Will people switch over from AOL or Yahoo?

    Well, there must be a great plan to unleash it.

    I’m still stunned by the popularity that Gmail generated from word-of-mouth promotion, and I’m amazed by how great of a tool it’s been for my use of email. With that said, I’m prepared for the switch. I just hope that a lot of people join in with my new preference because I can’t get people to switch from AOL IM over to my new YahooMessenger.

    What I find interesting is that it seems the new Google IM service is going to be a lot like Skype, an open-source IM/Chat/communications service that I think is an incredible service. I absolutely love it. But It’s going to be a shame to watch Skype battle for users and popularity…Looking at the past growth of gmail and the snobbery that surrounded Gmail’s growth, there’s no doubt that Skype is going to be in a dog-fight to keep users in this part of the world.

    Here’s the Reuters release on the new Google IM. Independent tech journalist, Om Malik is suggesting via his blog,
    Giaom, that the service is going to be released on the open-source system known as Jabber.

    It looks like I’m going to have to add a third IM to my GAIM service. Drop me an email with your new Google IM address, and let’s catch up.

    Ping me,
    BD

    New Collection: Triangle NC IAF

    Triangle NC IAF is a broad based, interfaith and ecumenical organization that uses the model of leadership development and community organizing of the IAF (Industrial Areas Foundation). Please visit the multimedia Durham CAN website – a member of Triangle NC AIF

    Link: Triangle NC IAF

    Upgrade your WP’s!

    Its come time in the endlessly frustrating cycle of third-party software use – upgrade your WP’s! We’ve been seeing some exploit-related traffic on ibiblio wp’s, so the best thing you can do is upgrade to protect yourself!

    This is written on a nice, happy, safe wordpress.

    Hack a RAZR Day

    Well, I am sort of infatuated with my new RAZR – form, function, and sheer sex appeal wrapped into a slimline case. As I purchased an unlocked RAZR (read: off-plan), it didn’t come preconfigured. I have always enjoyed the challenge of configuring unlocked phones, generally its not too complex, and you learn a lot about the ins and outs of the services. However, tomorrow I’m going to take it to the next level when I sit down for some heavy hex editing to fix a rogue message-delivery problem. Feel free to stop by the office if you want to see me in exasperated mode…

    And just in case you are configuring an unlocked RAZR, here’s a collection of links I’ve put together – http://del.icio.us/fstutzman/razr

    Ibiblio is Hiring!

    It is with a profound sense of sadness and with the best wishes that we say goodbye to John as he moves on to his new job at Lulu. However, we’re a fast-moving shop, so we’d like to spread the word far and wide that we’re going to be soon accepting applications for a senior systems administrator/programmer full-time position. At the same time, we’ll be accepting applications for a entry-level student systems administrator position.

    The full time job will have a full req (after all, it is a state job), but here’s a little bit of what we’re looking for. We’d like someone with at least 5 years professional experience, in a hands-on high- or senior-level administrative capacity. Solaris, HP-UX, AIX junkies welcome to apply, but we’re a Linux shop, and that ain’t gonna change any time soon. This is an excellent job for a highly motivated administrator who feels ready to take on the task of one of the largest free-information sites on the internet. Of course, free-information-loving, GNU-friendly folks are our fave; but you’ve got to be friendly, understanding, and able to work in a team environment. Salary is a good deal better than non-profit, but we’re no investment bank, either. We do provide one of the coolest working environments around, however. We’ll be developing the req over the next week, so if you’re interested, send us a message at jobs at ibiblio.org.

    If you’re a UNC student, and interested in our entry-level admin job, please drop us a line as well (same address), and you’ll be hearing from us.

    Leo Stoller sent Cease and Desist Letter

    You may have heard of Leo Stoller. The New York Times wrote about him recently. He has trademarked the word “stealth” and dozens of other terms and phrases, and has made a business of suing people who use them. One of the phrases he claims license to is “Freedom of Expression”. Well, it just so happens that Kembrew McLeod trademarked “Freedom of Expression” (as a political statement) in 1999. Also, I’ve had the domain name freedomofexpression.org registered for a couple years. Kembrew, a few others, and I have have formed the Freedom of Expression Security Consortium. Our motto: Regulating Freedom in the Marketplace of Ideas. We have sent Mr. Stoller a cease and desist letter, demanding that he stop infringing on our intellectual property rights.

    Freedom of Expression Security Consortium: Regulating Freedom in the Marketplace of Ideas

    Truck in a Ditch

    It takes so little to amuse us. Even the misfortune of others can get us into a titter. We are human and so are imperfect. We were reminded of this today when collegue Diane Kelly told us that a really big cement truck had collapsed part of a ditch excavation and was laying on its side blocking the road.
    Naturally we rushed down to South Road behind the Student Stores to lend a hand and to gawk. There we met Sarah Reuning who took these pictures at the scene.
    It took about 30 minutes and two very very big crane trucks to get the cement truck aright.

    Technorati…Public Utility?

    Out here in the San Frandisco off of Fillmore Street, and I caught this article…

    Check out Adam Peneberg’s article on Technorati today on WiredNews, which reports how much of an influence Technorati has upon real-time media. Peneberg makes a good point that Technorati has become a different type of search engine…as seen with the London Bombings.

    Because it only takes seven minutes to post, where Google takes a “static” point of view as the world’s largest reference library research tool. Should Technorati be seen as a new public utility for searching?

    I hope so…Let’s see if they can break the $300 mark…;)

    From Haight and Fillmore,
    BD

    Political Orientation of the UNC Campus

    I’m currently fascinated by The Facebook. Rather than being just another Friendster/Myspace clone, TheFacebook is a phenomenon on campus. Exactly why TheFacebook is such a hit remains debatable – but beside the point. In some recent research I completed, I found that nearly 90% of Undergraduates at UNC are on TheFacebook. Rather significant.

    One of the interesting ways TheFacebook allows you to describe yourself in your service profile is by political orientation. Allowing students to classify themselves as either Very Liberal, Liberal, Moderate, Conservative, Very Conservative, Libertarian and Apathetic/Other (I merged the last two into one category in a very unscientific manner), you can actually use TheFacebook to begin to develop a political profile of students on campus.

    In this first graph (click to see it full-size), the “political orientation” of UNC-Chapel Hill is presented. Males and Females are aggregated together, and the totals are plotted. As you can see, we still live on a liberal campus, but the conservative faction is quite substantial (i.e., not the aggrieved hyper-minority it often presents itself as). Interesting also is the lack of the oft-reported chasm between liberals and conservatives. Given the chance to describe themselves as “very liberal” and “very conservative”, most students choose to describe themselves as liberal, moderate, or conservative. It seems that college students represent a more moderate, centrist bloc than is often reported.



    View Full Size

    In this second graph, we see a side-by-side comparison of the politcial views of UNC students by gender. Interesting is the tendency of female students to identify as liberal, and the relative equal distribution of male political views. While liberals and moderates outnumber conservatives in each case, a significant percentage of males and females identify as conservative.



    View Full Size

    While none of this is particularly surprising to me (other than the large conservative faction), it is an interesting insight into the political orientation of UNC students. This may be especially interesting for prof’s who always wondered how their classes were politically oriented.

    RNC 2004

    JJB checking in. I’m currently working on a documentary film, tentatively named RNC 2004. I went to New York City during the Republican National Convention. I interviewed many protesters on the street, in addition to various political and media figures (partial list of interviewees here).

    I’ve made a 3 minute promo for the film (no that’s not me with the microphone, it’s my friend Jonothan Bourland). You can also download the current cut of the entire 60 minute film: either a 300 MB Quicktime file or a torrent of the 3.8 GB full quality DVD image.

    If you do watch either the promo or the rough cut, I would love to hear any and all feedback you have, either in the comments on the blog, or by email.

    If you want to be kept up to date on the progress of the film, sign up on the email list (traffic will be light. maximum one email per week).

    Barack Obama at The Aspen Institute 7/03/05

    Alright, we have our first correspondent for “Notes From the Lab” today…

    Former UNC Chapel Hill Journalism student, Brett Garamella, a.k.a. “The Aspen Kid” attended a dialogue session between rising Democratic hopeful, Barack Obama and President of The Aspen Institute, Walter Isaccson last Saturday night.

    Obama touched on a number of topics, and here’s the report from Aspen, Colorado…

    Barack Obama – June 2, 2005
    By Brett Garamella

    Barack Obama spoke in Aspen with articulation you’d expect from a man who served as the first African-American president of the Harvard Law Review. His eloquence and intelligence proved greater than the high expectations I had before the dialogue with Aspen Institute President Walter Isaacson on Saturday evening.

    Isaacson began the discussion by asking, “How does a skinny black guy with a funny name, born in Hawaii, mother from Kansas and father from Kenya, become the senator from Illinois?”

    Obama told of his improbable rise, how his father left when he was 2 and how he only saw him once, at age 10. “The starting premise for me that my mother instilled in me, and my father inadvertently instilled, was that everybody was the same.” He went on to elaborate that his understanding of the human condition evolved from growing up in Hawaii and Indonesia.

    “One of the wonderful things about America is that we come from these different ports and these different places and there is this sense that we can create ourselves, that our destiny is determined by us,” he said. After graduating from Columbia and Harvard Law, Obama created his own destiny, moving to Chicago in 1985 and working with church-based groups trying to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods.

    “I moved there, not knowing a sole in Illinois and it turned out to be the greatest education I ever received,” said Obama. “The most important thing it taught me was that ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they are given the opportunity in order to get them.”

    Although listening to him you gained the impression that he might run for president or a higher office in the future, he said the Democrat Party needs to stop thinking about the future elections and decide on what’s the best way to help the American people. “I don’t care how you spin things … if you haven’t done the hard intellectual work and have something say, you’re not going to win elections.”

    He said the three biggest concerns the Democrat Party should have are:

    1.) The global economy
    2.) Foreign policy
    3.) Faith and Family values.

    “Democrats have to talk about faith, family and community in a way that weighs diversity in politics rather than excludes diversity in politics without feeling the importance to necessarily drop a quote from the bible in their speech. There’s got to be a certain authenticity when we talk about values.”

    Another big issue Obama addressed involved the media. In one anecdote, he told how two guys were arguing and finally one guy gave up and said, “Well, I’m entitled to my own opinion.” The other guy said, “Your entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.”

    Obama said that the problem with mainstream media today is that it presents two opposing opinions, but then rarely clarifies the facts of the issue based on thorough research.

    Here are some more Obama quotes on certain topics discussed:

    Education: “Most importantly, No Child Left Behind did not speak to what I think is a critical issue in education, that is how do we encourage our best and brightest to continue teaching, and how do we substantially upgrade the pay and performance of the teaching profession.”

    Decision for Iraq War:
    “When I was running, in the fall of 2002 … I said this is a bad idea. It certainly wasn’t because I didn’t think Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. I specifically said in a speech in Chicago, it was about six months before the war, I said, I’m not on the federal intelligence committee, but I don’t see any serious weapons of mass destruction. I don’t see Saddam connected to Al Qaida. This is going to cost billions of dollars and thousands of lives… and I think I’ve been pretty restrained in not saying, I told you so….”

    President Bush’s Tax Cuts: “You didn’t need those tax cuts and you weren’t even asking for them.”

    Ways to Decrease the Deficit: “If we don’t get a hold of our healthcare costs over the private and government sector, I do not think we can solve our structural deficit problem.”

    Afterward the lady sitting next to me seemed as impressed as I did listening to Obama. I told her I’m sure he’ll move up from his current position as a senator in Illinois. She said if politicians like him don’t move to higher positions “we’re doomed.” I couldn’t agree more.

    Brett Garamella…Reporting for “Notes From the Lab” from Aspen, Colorado.

    Good stuff from “BG”, a.k.a. “The Aspen Kid”,
    BD