Identity Fragmentation and sensitivity to access by unknown users among Adult Social Networking users

Hello,
 
I think that there might be some interest among those on this list in
statistics/results of consumer studies on social networking adoption/usage
patterns. 
 
See the report published on January 14, 2009 by the Pew Internet Research
group on Use of Social Networks by Adults. 
 
The full memo released about the study is available here:
http://pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_Adult_social_networking_data_memo_FINAL.pdf

 
The topic of identity fragmentation begins on the bottom of page 7 with the
statement: 

More than half of adult social network users have more than one profile
online 

There's about a page of findings there before it moves into the topic of
privacy and sensitivity of users to access by others who they know/don't
know. 
 
Interesting question about if/why people have deleted a social network
profile. 
 
I think that the data set compared on top of page 11 is flawed (data
acquired almost 18 months apart is being compared). Nevertheless, adults
sampled in May 2008 said that they believe they are easy to find on social
networks. 
 
I made a suggestion during the W3C Workshop (during discussion of what we
would like to see in terms of Deeper and Adaptive User Experiences) that it
would be useful to have a clearing house for reports about consumer
adoption/usage. No idea if the W3C would be the best/correct host but if
others are interested, these types of studies are among the resources which
I continuously collect for my market research.
 

Christine 

 

Christine Perey   

PEREY Research & Consulting

 

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