Social networking communities have become more popular since the introduction of Web 2.0. A major research study on the use of digital technologies by adults from 16 industrialised nations suggests that on average they spend a third of their leisure time online, belong to two social networking sites and have regular contact with people who they have met on the Internet (Harrison & Thomas, 2009). Social networking websites can be defined as web-based services that allow individuals to construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection and view their list of connections and those made by others within the system (Harrison & Thomas, 2009). One of the most common social networking communities is Facebook. The popularity of social networking communities such as Facebook demonstrate the addictive appeal of online and virtual communities across generations and cultures, particularly their attraction to teenagers, housewives, students and a new group of recently enfranchised elderly digital immigrants (Harrison and Thomas, 2009). For my conference paper, I am going to focus on Facebook and how people behave and present themselves on social networking sites. I will talk about how a lot of people create fake accounts on these websites and the reason why they do this.
