Notes from the interview

I interviewed three people – Nancy, a 58 year old mother, Nick, a 26 year old young professional, and Jessica, a 17 year old high school student. As I expected, their answers for general use information questions varied widely. Though not particularly noteworthy, I felt this showed the range of backgrounds making shared answers more noteworthy. What I found interesting was that, despite their friend group or motivation to be on Facebook, all three had a clear idea of how they wanted to present themselves online. It became clear that the motivation behind different modes of communication on Facebook – private messages, sharing stories, status updates, wall posts – was the intent to uphold their online persona. It also became clear that the way the user interacted with any individual wasn’t based on the other user, but based on the users “facebook audience” as a whole.