Module II- The Experiment

Article II
• MySpace and Facebook: Applying the Uses and Gratifications Theory to Exploring Friend-Networking Sites

The Experiment:

According to this article, women and men use Myspace and Facebook for different reasons. Women use them to maintain personal connections with family, friends, and coworkers, whereas men use them for pursuing sexual interests and romance. I will conduct an experiment that will show if this assertion is true or false. However, this experiment is only for people that already have Myspace or Facebook accounts.
The experiment will be held at a public library because it is for all women and men of any age. The time of the experiment will be in the morning. Facebook and Myspace users usually check their accounts early to see if they have any important messages or appointments. Therefore, the results would be more efficient.
To begin, I will ask all women to sit in one room in the library, while the men sit in another. These rooms will have computers that each person will be able to access. I will then tell each person to log on to either their Facebook or Myspace accounts. They will be asked to do what they normally do on these website at home. They will be given enough time to get the job done. An experimenter will then walk around and record what the people are doing on these websites. At the end of the experiment, I will compare the results of the reasons why women used Facebook or Myspace, as well as, the men’s reasons.