Social networking sites are extremely popular and are used by users of all ages. Facebook currently has 1.23 billion users who come into daily, even electronic, contact and communication. And as researchers admit, it knows a lot about love. For example, when two people are preparing to enter into a romantic relationship, their communication via Facebook increases significantly up to twelve days before the start of the relationship, when they share an average of 1.67 posts per day. From that point on, communication via Facebook is limited, apparently because the two Internet users spend more time away from computers and come into real contact.
Facebook has recently been announcing the conclusions of scientists about the habits of its users. Mike Devlin, the website's data analyst and mathematician, points out that his main work is analyzing searches on the website, how it is used by users, what they are looking for in order to make the process more useful.
But beyond that, the communication patterns that the analysts of the popular website find demonstrate how useful all this data can be in mapping human behavior, communication and interaction. At the same time, they verify or refute some assumptions about human relationships. Can horoscopes predict true love that withstands the blows of time? Better to forget about such a thing. "We have an extraordinary variety of data," explains Develin, adding that because Facebook knows a lot about the real identity of its users, there are actually no limits to the questions that analysts can study, about the structure of society, culture and the way in which people communicate and interact.
One day, Facebook analysts will be able to predict whether a couple will break up, if they are happy, by determining what elements make an interpersonal relationship last. Of course, the probative value of this data has its limits, as many users of the website do not share everything through it and of course many people around the world do not have a Facebook account.
But the truth is that those who use the social networking site reveal a lot about their lives. When analysts studied breakups based on the change in “relationship status” on the site’s users’ accounts, they found that many couples break up and then reconnect—and of course, they mention it on Facebook—ten or even fifteen times a year. The record, Develin explains, is held by a couple who broke up and reconnected 27 times in one year. And while one would imagine that no one in their right mind would want to share these ups and downs of their personal lives, these users religiously updated their accounts about the phase they were in.
Source: koutipandoras.gr
