Are You Sure Your Not Addicted to Facebook?

I came across a post done by Tara Stiles titled: Help! I'm Addicted to FaceBook! and found her story on this social networking site quite interesting. She starts off stating positive feedback the site has to offer and soon realizes, and admits, that she has an addiction to FaceBook because she is constantly checking up on it. She quotes Pope Benedict XVI stating:

Benedict welcomes as a 'gift' new technologies such as
social networking sites, saying they respond to the'fundamental desire' of people to communicate. But he warns that 'obsessive' virtual socializing can isolate people from real interaction and deepen the digital divide by excluding those already on the sidelines.

I decided to do my original post on Stiles because I was not aware of the extent that some people might go through when it comes to social networking sites. I agree with Stiles that sites such as MySpace provide a healthy way for people to communicate and network, but there is a real world out there and we should all enjoy it. I also agree with what the Pope when he says that we need to be careful not to "deepen the digital divide." It may be 2009, but I do believe that there are still homes in the U. S. that do not have computers and thus "excluding those already on the sidelines."

If you think you might have an addiction to FB, then you should check out Stiles' post and read here "10 warning signs that you may be addicted to Facebook."

The Solid 1% of a Democratized Forum

Our assigned chapter for this discusses the 1 Percenters. The "1 Percenters" is a term postulated by the authors of Citizen Marketers who did a research on citizen marketers. The rule states:

About 1 percent of the total number of
visitors to a democratized forum will create content for it or contribute content to it.

The research indicates that the 1 Percenters are ones, among many, that originate content in online communities. An example proposed in the chapter mentions Yahoo and it's Groups that are available for the community as a free service. An estimated 9.2 million people visit the sight each month but only 1 percent of them create new discussion and content threads (McConnell/Huba 35). The 1 Percent term can be better understood with power law:

Power laws tell us the distribution of action is uneven
across a widespread field of play.

I believe that 1 Percenters are those that truly love to spend their time online, like the chapter says, the ones that enjoy doing so as a hobby. 1 Percenters represent the larger community; if it wasn't for them, then the word would not be spread as it is and not make websites as Digg.com a possibility.