Wonderful World of Photos
- According to InsideFacebook.com (a website run by the company Inside Network), there are more than 3 billion photos being uploaded every month on Facebook.
My interview participants explained that they mainly use Facebook for two reasons:
1. Communicating with friends via wall posts, messages, or chat.
2. Sharing and browsing photos of friends and family.
Let's look at the following photo stories to see how photo posting, browsing, and tagging help to reinforce relationships both on and offline, and the significance of these tasks to Facebook's users and it's creators:
Managing your image on Facebook...
Connecting experiences through Facebook...
Robert Putnam, the "Bowling Alone" Thesis:
Social capital is not what you know, but who you know. Acquiring social capital means individuals must create and maintain bonds and ties with others.
HOW does photo sharing enable us to do this?
"...with friends I was known as the one that brought the camera. I am never without my camera and I love taking pictures, so a lot of my friends rely on me to be the one that documents the evening. I don't mind; I love it." - Vanessa Bogart
"I like the idea of photos as memorabilia...but I'm not a big "photo-taker."" - Jaime Morales
"...I like to see what people are up to. I feel like if I can see what they are involved in, we will have more to talk about in person." - Natalie Bogart
"You are definitely more connected to the people you share photos with; and on Facebook, its free. Before Facebook, if you wanted a friend to see your photos, you would have to get them developed, travel to wherever they are, and share them that way. The memories that photos capture keep you connected." - Priscilla Cristobal
"It makes me happy to see that they are happy wherever they are. It is hard sometimes to make the time to talk to a friend on the phone or on Skype, but if they post pictures, then you can scroll through them real quick and get a sense of what they have been up to and how their life is going. It also just feels good to see the people you love in present time." - Vanessa Bogart
Photo SHARING - "Posting photos and videos starts a conversation. Most teens receive some feedback on the content they post online." - Pew Internet and American Life Project, Teens, Privacy and Online Social Networks, 2007
Photo BROWSING-"The ubiquity of digital cameras and life-sharing media highlights how we have become our own paparazzi...In the online world, young people are constantly being watched by their peers." - S. Craig Watkins, The Young and The Digital, 2009
Photo TAGGING - "This feature further increases the opportunities to share photos among people with established offline relationships and has been largely successful." - Andrew Besmer & Heather Richter Lipford, Moving Beyond Untagging: Photo Privacy in a Tagged World, 2010
The participants in my interviews:
Jaime Morales, 21
Vanessa Bogart, 19
Priscilla Cristobal, 26
Natalie Bogart, 21
Thanks to all of my participants!
