Facebook Teens: Wild, Crazy and Busted.

Posted by Kristen Nicole on January 2nd, 2009 11:40 AM

The stories of teens getting into trouble on or through Facebook seem to be getting more numerous by the day. In the past week, weve seen reports of teens having the police called on them for a brawl that broke out at a party advertised on Facebook, and others that were arrested after posting videos of their criminal activity on the popular social network. Yet another teen has been arrested for harassing another user through Facebook. Whats gotten into teenagers these days? Their actions are nothing new. The platform for sharing their stories, however, is landing some teens in some very hot water. In a now familiar scenario, the police were called to a party that became rowdy when hundreds of teenagers tried to crash an event that was posted on Facebook, according to The Daily Mail. This is the latest in a string of similar situations in the UK where a private party advertised on Facebook reached the masses and led to dangerous fall-outs resulting in injuries and property damages. The Hartford Courant also reports that 18-year-old Ian Guilfoil in Newtown, Connecticut has been charged with three felony counts of risk of injury to a minor and misdemeanor charges of reckless endangerment and reckless driving after he posted a video of himself performing these criminal acts. How did Guilfoil get caught up? A parent saw the video on Facebook and called the police. Guilfoil isnt the only Newtown teen that has been arrested due to their Facebook activity. A 15-year-old girl was charged Monday with harassment for allegedly threatening her fellow student via Facebook. Have we learned nothing from MySpace, folks? With all the cool features and games and applications to be found on social networking platforms like Facebook, its easy to forget that such online sites are in fact ways in which to carry out social acts, many of which easily mimic activity we see in the offline world. So seeing teens act in such a manner isnt necessarily surprising, its just too easy to avoid. I was once a stupid teen on social networks, and have admittedly learned my lesson on what to share and what not to share. And given todays privacy options (especially on Facebook) theres even fewer excuses for the teens of today. The takeaways (teens, pay attention): 1. Keep private party advertisements private. Granted, its easy enough for another user to share your private invite with a few hundred of their closest friends, but try to instill a sense of exclusivity at private parties. And get your parents to hire security. 2. Dont post illegal activity on the web. Matter of fact, dont video tape yourself in the act of performing criminal acts. But if you must video tape yourself doing things that could get you arrested, dont post it on a social network where sharing media across ones social graph is par for the course. 3. Dont harass other people via a social network. Its highly traceable, even with all the anonymity of the web! Such moments of lecturing from an ex-teen may seem redundant, but it could become a growing problem for Facebook. The social network has managed to avoid many of the teen-related stigmas that have plagued MySpace for the past couple of years. But with Facebook having opened its platform to all users , coupled with the extreme growth in traffic and popularity, Facebook may be stuck with this rap until the next fad comes along and takes the plight of overly-public teens with it.

How to Monitor a Teen's Facebook Page

Monitor a Teen's Facebook Page

Facebook began as a college-only website where students could talk to each other about classes and issues. Users could only have profiles associated with their college, using their school email address to log in and browse their own network of students. The site expanded to allow high school students and eventually anyone to create profiles, causing parents to wonder about its safety. Follow the steps to learn how to monitor a teen's Facebook page.

Instructions
1. o Ask your teen for the login email and password to his or her Facebook page. If your teen allows you to have this information, make sure to thank him or her for trusting you with it and show that you trust your teen by not deleting messages and comments on the site without talking about it first. o

Create your own Facebook account at facebook.com and add your teen as a friend. This way you have full access to the teen's wall comments and applications as well as profile information, and show your teen that you are interested in his or her life without having to ask for login information.
o Talk to your teen. Ask what he or she does online and talk about the information on their Facebook profile. Teach your teen the right Internet safety skills and you can trust that he or she knows how to use them to keep safe from predators. o

3 4

Know how much time your teen is spending online. Be in the room every once in a while and look over your teen's shoulder when he or she is on the computer. Ask if anything interesting is going on and be there to listen and discuss anything that might become an issue.

PROS AND CONS OF FACEBOOK AND MYSPACE. Social networking has become one of the top routine activities people engage in when they go online. MySpace has long been a popular site, but in the last few years Facebook has really taken the Internet by storm. In 2009 Facebook took the reigns as the most frequented social networking site. Despite the fact MySpace is no longer at the top, they are not yet out of the running either. Both

networks continue to be popular and users log in each day to update statuses, chat with friends, exchange photos and all sorts of other socialization and shared information. There are many pros and cons to being a member of either or both websites. If only one social network is desired, a user would be best to explore the individual attributes of each prior to making a decision where to invest efforts. Over the years many users are frequently turning to Facebook, however there are many loyal MySpace members as well. Here are a few of the top pros and cons of social networking websites such as MySpace and Facebook: *Pros Both networking sites offer a terrific opportunity to meet new people or reconnect with persons from the past. Today it is more than easy to connect with others who share either a history or similar interests and strike up a friendship, or in some cases a love relationship. Exchanging conversation is easy. Instead of contacting friends and family individually, all a person needs to do is send out a general message or update a status and this lets everyone know what is going on. For many, this is a huge time saver and allows a feeling of keeping in touch. Communication is free, long gone are the days of worrying about long-distance bills or going over cell phone minutes. All people have to do is log into their favorite network and leave messages or open a chat window. On the career side, social networks can open up a plethora of opportunity and exposure. Using websites to promote professional endeavors has become increasingly popular and will undoubtedly become a stronger and more utilized tool in the future. *Cons Safety and security top the list of the biggest disadvantages of sites such as MySpace and Facebook. Since a lot of personal information tends to be shared in what many consider to be closed networks, the reality is the Internet is a very public place and information tends to spread like wildfire. Unfortunately identity thieves scour networking sites to gain personal information until they can piece together the puzzle in order to make a score. Other

negative impacts are people make connections and become friends, then see on a status that someone is on vacation or out of the house and then commit burglary. Security on social networks is probably the most serious issue. Separating from 'real life' is another drawback to social networking. Many people have begun to use sites such as MySpace and Facebook as a substitute for in-person interaction. It is common for people to "Facebook" one another as opposed to making a phone call or dropping by. Social networks are pretty time consuming and can lead to lowered productivity. Many people become fixated on games, quizzes, videos and other applications offered on each site. MySpace even has news feeds and other features to make it a one-stop website. Facebook has more applications that one can count and each one has a tendency to be addictive to those who are vulnerable. As a result, a lot of time is used up on these aspects of the social networks. In general, social networking websites are pretty time consuming. Before joining MySpace, Facebook, or any other social networking website, it is a good idea to grasp an understanding of the pros and cons of each before making a decision. Then once a member, use the site wisely.

With the pros and cons, the key is balance. Since websites such as MySpace and Facebook (or future incarnations) don't seem to be losing steam any time soon, it is important to strive for that vital balance in order to maximize the advantages and minimize the disadvantages.

Teens Experiencing Facebook Fatigue [STUDY]

Online gaming site Roiworld surveyed 600 teens ages 13 to 17 in late April and found that teens spend two hours per day online on average, 80% of which is spent using a social network. These same teens are, however, showing signs of Facebook Fatigue. Nearly one in five (19%) who have an account no longer visit Facebook or are using it less. Of the group that are saying goodbye to Facebook, 45% have lost interest, 16% are leaving because their parents are there, 14% say there are too many adults/older people and 13% are concerned about the privacy of their personal information. While interest in Facebook may be waning, its still the most popular social network among teens 78% have created a profile and 69% still use it. YouTube ranks second; 64% of teens claim to have a YouTube profile and continue to use the site. MySpace comes in a distant third (41%) and Twitter takes the fourth spot (20%).

The study also suggests that the teens that continue to stick to Facebook do so primarily to play games. Roiworld found that more than one-third of the teens who play games on Facebook admit to spending at least 50% of their time on the site immersed in gameplay. The online gaming trend extends far beyond Facebook, as 75% of surveyed teens claim to play games on the web. It seems obvious that the newest generation of online users would have few qualms about spending money online, and this study supports that theory. The research purports that 43% of teens using social sites have spent money within a social network. Theyre purchasing items such as currency for virtual items (35%), music (33%), avatar accessories (30%) and points to level up (23%). Nearly half of this crowd (49%) indicate that they have an allowance for such expenditures. For more on how teens are spending their time and money online, check out a portion of The Teens and Social Networks study embedded below.

December Data on Facebooks US Growth by Age and Gender: Beyond 100 Million
Facebook has been steadily climbing towards 100 million monthly active users (MAU) in the United States, and it finally reached the milestone late this past month, according to the self-reported data in its advertising tool.
Heres a closer look at how those numbers break down by age and gender. Be sure to check out the caveats for these numbers at the end of the article the short of it is that you should take all of these numbers as estimates. Overall, growth appears to have continued at around the same rate as before: Nearly 5 million users joined the site in December, pushing the total from 98.1 million MAU to nearly 103 million MAU. The previous two months saw increases of around 4 million apiece. Women, especially younger women, continue to comprise the single largest demographic groups within the US. In total, women constitute over 56% of the overall Facebook population a continuation of a long-time trend. Younger users saw the biggest numerical increases in December and the 26-34 range saw the largest overall increase, adding 839,000 new MAU, most of whom were female. Earlier last year, we were seeing stronger relative growth in older demographics. Maybe Facebook is facing challenges retaining older users? In terms of growth rates, younger people and older men saw the fastest growth, as you can see below, with women over 55 not joining the site as fast as they had been earlier last year. In December, men over 55 on Facebook grew over twice as fast as women over 55.

As we enter 2010, only 40% of Facebook users are under the age of 25 60% are 26 or older, and nearly 20% are 45 are older. While it started as a site for students in a few colleges, American use of Facebook today is very intergenerational. Note that the total number of users in a given age group is higher than the combined number of males and females within it, and for a couple reasons. One is that not every user designates their gender on Facebook, either by choice or because they forgot to. Another reason is that overall demographic numbers are estimates.

Facebook shutdown a hoax

KUALA LUMPUR - The Internet was abuzz yesterday as rumours spread that the popular social networking site Facebook would be shutting down on March 15. A glance on online trend-tracking system GoogleTrends indicated the rumour started gaining traction yesterday at 4am before peaking seven hours later. If true, the shutdown could affect some 500 million users worldwide, including some 9.9 million users in Malaysia. It is unclear where the rumour began, although some publications have attributed it to a widely-linked article posted by US-based news website, the Weekly World News. The article stated that "users will no longer be able to access their Facebook account" starting March 15, and quoted Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. "Facebook has gotten out of control and the stress of managing this company has ruined my life." "I need to put an end to all the madness," he was reported to have said. Weekly World News, however, is known for its comedic news spoofs and blatantly false reports, with its recent articles claiming that United States First Lady Michelle Obama was pregnant and that actor George Clooney would be running for president next year. Facebook representatives have yet to address the rumour. For now, however, it is fairly safe to assume the speculation is a hoax. The rumour came on the heels of major developments in the industry, with online services corporation Yahoo! announcing last month that it would be shutting down its Yahoo! Video service, also on March 15. The Facebook corporation's value is also set to rise to US$50 billion (RM153 billion) following a recent announcement that global investment firm Goldman Sachs and Russia's Digital Sky Technologies would be investing some US$500

million investment in the social networking giant. Meanwhile, MySpace.com, another social networking site which has struggled to compete with Facebook's success, is reported to be planning a massive restructuring project, which would reduce its international workforce to a skeleton staff.

Business : People are getting fired because of facebook

FIRED BECAUSE OF FACEBOOK
A Nationale Suisse worker in Basel, Switzerland, lost her job because she used Facebook at home while off sick. The woman said she couldn't look at a computer screen and needed to rest in a darkened room instead of working, but was then seen to be active on Facebook, which insurer Nationale Suisse said in a statement had destroyed its trust in the employee. "This abuse of trust, rather than the activity on Facebook, led to the ending of the work contract," it said. The unnamed woman told the 20 Minuten daily she had been surfing Facebook in bed on her iPhone and accused her employer of spying on her and other employees by sending a mysterious friend request which allows access to personal online activity. Nationale Suisse rejected the accusation of spying and said the employee's Facebook activity had been stumbled across by a colleague in November, before use of the social network site was blocked in the company.

(WHAS11) - Facebook got an Indiana man fired from his job. It happened after he joined a page that slammed a product made by his company. Drew Stith has worked for Living Essentials, which makes a 5 Hour Energy Drink for more than a year. That is, until his post on Facebook ended his job. Stith says he did like his job and that even his good work record couldn't have saved him. It was because there was a Facebook page called Five Hour Energy Sucks and so I liked that page. I don't really like the product that they make, I mean, it doesn't work for me." Social media experts say some companies have clear internet posting policies but Stith says he doesn't remember any policy. Experts say more than ever, be careful what you post on the internet.

FACEBOOK TRIVIA AND STATISTICS.

More than 500 million active users 50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day Average user has 130 friends People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook Activity on Facebook There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)

Average user is connected to 80 community pages, groups and events Average user creates 90 pieces of content each month More than 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month. Global Reach More than 70 translations available on the site About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application

Platform Entrepreneurs and developers from more than 190 countries build with Facebook Platform People on Facebook install 20 million applications every day Every month, more than 250 million people engage with Facebook on external websites Since social plugins launched in April 2010, an average of 10,000 new websites integrate with Facebook every day More than 2.5 million websites have integrated with Facebook, including over 80 of comScore's U.S. Top 100 websites and over half of comScore's Global Top 100 websites

Mobile There are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices. People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users. There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products I have been publishing Facebook usage statistics by quarter for a while and now have enough data to be able to look at 12 month growth in Facebook users by country and 24 month growth in Facebook users by country. Total number of Facebook users has now passed 400m and Facebook is growing everywhere - maybe why Google is (allegedly) still looking closely at social networking and regarding Facebook with envious eyes?
The table below shows the top 30 countries by number of active Facebook users with July 2010 Facebook user information compared to 2009 and 2008 Facebook usage statistics (leave a comment if you want to know statistics for other countries.) Here are the Top 30 countries with highest number of Facebook users (1st July 2010 - data from Facebook):

Rank 1

Country USA

Number of Number of Facebook users Facebook users 1st July 2008 1st July 2009 27,811,560 69,378,980

Number of Facebook users 1st July 2010 125,881,220

12 month growth % 81.4%

24 month growth % 352.6%

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 26 27 28 29 30

UK Indonesia Turkey France Italy Canada Philippines Mexico Spain India Argentina Colombia Germany Australia Malaysia Chile Taiwan Venezuela Brazil Thailand Sweden Egypt Belgium Israel South Africa Greece Poland Czech Rep

11,171,540 209,760 3,464,640 2,461,140 491,100 9,621,820 162,640 1,042,820 695,900 711,520 417,980 2,412,000 618,080 3,217,380 450,580 2,105,820 71,340 966,700 119,080 114,180 1,141,700 783,440 531,740 837,900 591,900 878,120 505,000 83,180 51,680

18,711,160 6,496,960 12,382,320 10,781,480 10,218,400 11,961,020 2,719,560 3,644,400 5,773,200 3,236,140 4,906,220 5,760,300 3,136,680 6,053,560 1,995,040 4,830,680 685,460 3,578,740 1,015,400 697,340 2,287,240 1,618,040 2,372,460 2,087,580 1,433,540 1,720,820 1,638,980 619,180 1,088,020

26,543,600 25,912,960 22,552,540 18,942,220 16,647,260 15,497,900 14,600,300 12,978,440 10,610,080 10,547,240 10,542,040 10,226,820 9,949,760 9,009,660 7,317,520 6,944,540 6,745,160 6,686,300 4,757,200 4,216,760 3,798,020 3,581,460 3,505,920 3,408,240 3,006,460 2,884,080 2,838,700 2,772,540 2,686,040

41.9% 298.9% 82.1% 75.7% 62.9% 29.6% 436.8% 256.1% 83.8% 225.9% 114.9% 77.5% 217.2% 48.8% 266.8% 43.8% 884.0% 86.8% 368.5% 504.7% 66.1% 121.4% 47.8% 63.3% 109.7% 67.6% 73.2% 347.8% 146.9%

137.6% 12253.6% 550.9% 669.7% 3289.8% 61.1% 8877.1% 1144.6% 1424.7% 1382.4% 2422.1% 324% 1509.8% 180.0% 1524.0% 229.8% 9355% 591.7% 3895% 3593.1% 232.7% 357.2% 559.3% 306.7% 407.9% 228.4% 462.1% 3233.2% 5097.5%

25 Hong Kong

[*figures are taken from Facebook and then compared to Facebook usage statistics lists that I have previously compiled (allowing the 12 month and 24 month comparisons.)]

The

lastest

Facebook

usage

statistics

show

some

interesting

trends.

-Facebook is still growing quickly and is far from 'being the new MySpace' as some people have claimed! - There have been some significant gains across the top 30 Facebook countries by number of users, particularly notable are India, Brazil and Asia (Thailand, Taiwan etc)

- There are now strong signs that Facebook is even starting to seriously challenge in markets where there has been a strong local player - Netherlands, South Korea, Russia (and Facebook is starting to show traction in Japan now too.) The table below shows the top 30 countries by number of active Facebook users with Facebook data from 1st April 2011 compared to April 2010 and April 2009 Facebook usage statistics (leave a comment if you want to know statistics for other countries.) Here are the Top 30 countries with highest number of Facebook users (1st Apr 2011 - data from Facebook): Number of Facebook users April 2009 56,796,060 2,325,840 17,866,140 9,759,780 1,561,000 2,142,080 1,026,300 8,946,140 8,260,300 11,597,420 1,955,240 395,940 3,406,520 4,228,220 4,838,760 1,197,560 5,327,260 205,500 284,340 2,658,140 4,397,300 1,252,100 293,800 454,000 201,840 156,740 2,052,080 615,520 2,125,600 Number of Facebook users April 2010 114,190,780 20,775,320 24,378,040 20,538,740 7,809,800 9,208,560 11,561,740 17,317,460 15,486,480 13,952,740 8,454,240 3,602,100 8,580,180 9,292,380 8,681,500 5,552,660 7,922,140 6,107,100 2,895,320 5,765,240 6,273,000 2,816,480 2,211,940 1,943,000 906,440 566,780 3,422,680 2,292,600 3,239,980 Number of Facebook 12 month users 1st April 2011 growth % 154,226,960 35,177,260 29,673,740 27,665,280 22,956,220 22,799,780 22,376,740 21,748,240 19,143,520 17,792,280 17,499,060 15,567,620 13,786,020 13,534,800 13,122,300 10,088,720 9,862,820 9,053,660 8,699,080 8,354,340 7,884,360 6,662,100 5,986,640 5,121,860 4,371,040 4,230,500 4,203,500 4,111,260 4,085,360 35.1% 69.3% 21.7% 34.7% 193.9% 147.6% 93.5% 25.6% 23.6% 27.5% 107% 332.2% 60.7% 45.7% 51.2% 81.7% 24.5% 48.3% 200.5% 44.9% 25.7% 136.5% 170.7% 163.6% 382.2% 646.4% 22.8% 79.3% 26.1% 24 month growth % 171.6% 1412.5% 66.1% 183.5% 1370.6% 964.4% 2080.3% 143.1% 131.8% 53.4% 795% 3831.8% 304.7% 220.1% 171.2% 742.4% 85.1% 4305.7% 2959.4% 214.3% 79.3% 432.1% 1937.7% 1028.2% 2065.6% 2599.1% 104.8% 567.9% 92.2%

Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 27 29

Country USA Indonesia UK Turkey India Mexico Philippines France Italy Canada Germany Brazil Argentina Spain Colombia Malaysia Australia Taiwan Thailand Venezuela Chile Egypt Poland Peru Russia Sweden Belgium

26 South Korea 28 Netherlands

30

Pakistan

549,560

2,006,600

4,030,260

100.9%

633.4%

[*figures are taken from Facebook API and then compared to Facebook usage statistics lists that I have previously compiled (allowing the 12 month and 24 month comparisons.)]

As always, if you want to know the latest Facebook usage statistics for another country (and data is now published for almost every country in the world), leave a comment in the post below and I will post the relevant Facebook user statistics data.

Top 30 Facebook Fan Pages by number of fans - October 2010

Facebook Pages seem to be growing faster than ever. Partly a derivative of the various changes implemented in recent months ('Become A Fan Of' evolving to 'Like' , Open Graph activation, the ability to take over / merge Pages and Facebook's linking Pages to Profile interests) and partly down to Page holders giving a greater focus on Facebook Fan numbers (promoted on TV etc.) I have previously looked at the most popular Facebook Fan Pages (in May 2008, November 2008, June 2009 and January 2010) and Facebook Page fan numbers have increased significantly since then. At the end of 2008 only Barack Obama and Michael Phelps had more than 1 million fans. by the beginning of 2010 the Michael Jackson page was the only Page in excess of 10 million, but as you can see from the list below these numbers are small fry compared to the number of Facebook Fans that Facebook Pages now have (especially Texas Hold'em Poker which has managed to gain 20 million fans since the beginning of the year!) The quirky pages like (Pizza or remembering something funny) are still popular but 'Music' is the only Community page now in the top 30 Facebook Pages: Here are the top 30 Facebook Fan Pages by number of fans (including URL):

Rank

Facebook Fan Page Name Texas Hold'Em Poker Facebook Lady Gaga Family Guy Eminem YouTube Vin Diesel The Twilight Saga

Number of Likes

Facebook Fan Page URL

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

25,568,343 23,630,608 21,336,449 19,903,117 17,937,772 17,866,500 17,480,817 16,356,692

http://www.facebook.com/TexasHoldEm http://www.facebook.com/facebook http://www.facebook.com/michaeljackson http://www.facebook.com/ladygaga http://www.facebook.com/familyguy http://www.facebook.com/Eminem http://www.facebook.com/youtube http://www.facebook.com/VinDiesel http://www.facebook.com/twilight

Michael Jackson 22,430,514

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Starbucks Megan Fox South Park House Linkin Park Coca-Cola Barack Obama Music Mafia Wars Lil Wayne Justin Bieber Cristiano Ronaldo Bob Marley Dr. House Taylor Swift Rihanna Oreo Twilight Skittles Katy Perry Selena Gomez

16,099,677 15,922,621 15,810,977 15,638,282 15,425,944 15,250,887 15,189,862 14,925,555 14,366,348 14,291,235 14,105,010 13,722,957 13,127,020 12,763,528 12,546,896 12,483,199 12,200,866 12,069,587 11,590,439 11,554,907 11,363,673

http://www.facebook.com/Starbucks http://www.facebook.com/MeganFox http://www.facebook.com/SouthPark http://www.facebook.com/house http://www.facebook.com/linkinPark http://www.facebook.com/coca-cola http://www.facebook.com/BarackObama http://www.facebook.com/pages/Music/112936425387489 http://www.facebook.com/MafiaWarsFans http://www.facebook.com/LilWayne http://www.facebook.com/justinbieber http://www.facebook.com/cristiano http://www.facebook.com/BobMarley http://www.facebook.com/DrHouse http://www.facebook.com/TaylorSwift http://www.facebook.com/Rihanna http://www.facebook.com/oreo http://www.facebook.com/pages/Twilight/44554497501 http://www.facebook.com/skittles http://www.facebook.com/KatiePerry http://www.facebook.com/selena

People are learning how to use the site and what's OK to share. As time goes on, people will learn what's appropriate, what's safe for them and learn to share accordingly.