Facebook and face-to-face communication : A survey among 100 youth in Karlstad of their communicative habits

This essay deals with the subject of communication through Facebook. In this survey we studied 100 youths from Karlstad and their communication habits and behavior patterns on Facebook. The social network site Facebook has since its start in 2004 made a mark in modern communication. Today in 2010 the site has more than 500 million users. This paper wants to study what happens to other types of communication. Has the increased use of computer-mediated communication led us away from face to face or has it encouraged us to use face- to face communication more often? Our target group for this study is people attending their final year in high school. In this study we have been using both qualitative- and quantitative methods to collect our data. The result of the study suggests that a big part in our target group is happy to use Facebook or other computer-mediated sites as ways of their communication. Partly because they think it is a convenient way to communicate but also because they find it easier to get in touch with people, both close friends and people they have never met, by using computer-mediated communication instead of face-to-face communication. Virtually all in our target group suggests that Facebook has helped them in their communication and that they are more social now than before. This paper also has sought to illuminate if shy people can be helped to establish social ties through computer-mediated communication.Keywords: Facebook, communication, face-to-face, computer-mediated communication and shynes