Facebook: Why Do People Use Social Networking Sites?

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In September 2006, Facebook is just a new born social networking site which has approximately 9.5 million users (Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008). In November 2013, the users of Facebook have increased to 1,278 million (Facebook, 2013). Based on user number and traffic research, Facebook already become the world biggest social networking sites. The dramatic development of Facebook brings a series changes in people’s everyday life. There are a number of functions to satisfy different demand of their audience. For example, Facebook allow users to build up a personal profile and post their information on it. In addition, they can find some entertainment function, Games app supply thousands of games. Many researches begin to focus their attention on the relationship between Facebook and its audiences. These researches mainly use college students as survey subject. As one of the biggest user group, more than 90% college students have Facebook account (Wiley and Sisson, 2006; Ellison and Steinfield et al., 2007; Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008). Some researches showed college students spend time on Facebook per day is about 30 minutes (Ellison and Steinfield et al 2007; Valenzuela and Park et al., 2009; Pempek and Yermolayeva et al. 2009). However, these researches have just evaluated the impact of Facebook on users, and no research analyses how the audience demand affect Facebook service. As one of the Facebook users, it is important to know the relationship between Facebook and me. In this study, the relationship between Facebook and its audience will be analysing. At the beginning, we will apply use and gratification theory to dissect how Facebook satisfy users’ demand. Next it is to find how audience demand and behaviour affect Facebook. Finally, based on all these result, the interactive relationship will be concluded.

The users of internet are relatively active. They can active choose and use different media product to satisfy their social and psychological needs. Use and gratification theory is a significant way to explore the need individuals are meeting by using Facebook (Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008). Although there are some criticism of the use and gratification theory, such as does not predict media exposure very well and failure to integrate different research finding (Larose and Eastin, 2004, Raacke and Bonds-Raacke, 2008), this approach is still a significant tool to understand Facebook usage and users’ need. Mcquail (2005:425) points four types media-person interactions: diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance. Park and Kee et al.

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