TY - JOUR AU - Bumgarner, Brett A. PY - 2007/11/05 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - You have been poked: Exploring the uses and gratifications of Facebook among emerging adults JF - First Monday JA - FM VL - 12 IS - 11 SE - DO - 10.5210/fm.v12i11.2026 UR - https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2026 SP - AB - The social networking site Facebook has become an inescapable phenomenon for college students, but little systematic research has studied why these students use Facebook. I conducted an online survey among Facebook users at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (N = 1,049) to examine why they use Facebook and how it fulfills their needs. The most prevalent use of Facebook was as a social activity – students reported using Facebook with friends to view and discuss other people’s profiles. Essentially, Facebook appears to operate primarily as a tool for the facilitation of gossip. ER -