Our latest session interviewing MySpace teens turned up a bit of a different pattern of MySpace usage. Check out the contrast with a previous, perhaps slightly male-dominated session here.
Main use of MySpace
The girls we interviewed this week said they spent around 70% of their time on MySpace looking at the profiles of and communicating with people they know well. They communicate through private messages, public comments and a bit through their blogs.
Minor uses
They spend about 20% of the time finding new bands and listening to music. The remaining ten percent or so is divided between surfing profiles of those they don’t know at all and keeping in touch with those they know vaguely offline.
No time spent on profile, then?
They put absolutely minimal effort into their profiles. So they either have a profile with basically no information and no design, or have a more complex one that they did put some time into originally but now don’t bother to modify. Despite (because of?) being good-looking in person they have only jokey, appearance-obscured photos on MySpace.
Jokey eh?
In fact irony and in-jokes play a huge role for much of the time they are on the site. Sarah described what they do on MySpace as “just joking, just messing around. The comments we leave are pointless, really”. Katie echoed this, “It’s just a big joke. We use it out of boredom”.
So why not just use email or SMS?
MySpace is seen as being more convenient for communication. Also, particularly leaving a friend a public comment is seen as more enjoyable than, for example, an SMS text. One of the group, though, still uses email as much as MySpace for communicating with friends.
What’s the most important thing on a profile?
The song… although that can be a joke too.
Attitude towards MySpace?
“If everyone keeps themselves to themselves then its great” said Sarah, “I am wary, but that goes with everything on the internet”. This group didn’t feel guilty about spending time on MySpace. The feeling was that although from one perspective using MySpace could be thought of as a waste of time, at root it is good fun.
Will you still use MySpace when you are 30?
“Probably. It’s a fantastic way of having a laugh… plus I’ll use it for music”.
MySpace friends? Meeting people through MySpace?
They would never communicate (now) with people they haven’t met. All get a steady stream of friend requests from strangers, but either delete them without looking at them or leave them unopened. “In the early days” (i.e. 8 months ago), one girl met someone who has now become a collaborator in music and good friend offline, but that could never happen now.
Other social-networking sites?
Bebo had never been used by any of them. Faceparty and hi5 had been used for a little while but no longer: “MySpace is where my friends are”.
Mint is planning a world tour of Munich and London. We’ll be talking about:
- our research into how teens use MySpace
- ideas of how media firms can harness UGC to generate hits
- case studies of BloomBox in action
And much more.
Catch us live at:
Media in Transition
Media Content Management
Andy Bell
7th September - Munich (20% off with partner code: UGTV06)
London Media Summit
Topic TBC
Andy Bell
27th October - London
Digital Hollywood
Web 2.0 - Blogs, User Generated Media, Mashups, Social Media as Agents of Change
Tim Morgan
1st December - London
TV Outlook 2007
User Generated Content - A real cash cow?
Andy Bell
1st December - Munich
More dates coming soon!
“So, the thing you do most on MySpace is check out profiles of people you don’t know. Do you ever communicate with any of these people?”
“Never!”
Notes from a recent session interviewing teens about MySpace.
Breakdown of time spent on MySpace
(figures are percentages, names are changed)
|
Charlie (19yrs) |
Lucy (18yrs) |
Fred (18yrs) |
| Modifying own profile |
5 |
10 or 15 |
5 |
| Communicating with good friends |
25 or 30 |
25 |
25 |
| C-ting with people they know vaguely |
15 |
10 or 15 |
10 |
| Communicating with MySpace friends |
0 |
0 |
10 |
| Surfing profiles of known people |
5 |
25 |
15 |
| Surfing profiles of unknown people |
45 |
25 |
35 |
[However all said they spent a lot of time setting up profile initially]
Attitude towards MySpace?
People are slightly embarrassed/ guilty about spending time on MySpace. A few hours spent on MySpace is seen as wasted time. Someone might sarcastically joke when going home from pub, “I am going on MySpace now”, because its kind of a sad thing to do. Charlie feels he has kudos from having deleted his MySpace account.
Meet new people through MySpace?
Very rare. Only Charlie met someone for real having first met them on MySpace, and that was something to do with music. Fred spends time communicating with MySpace-only friends, but could never imagine meeting them in the flesh.
Develop peripheral friendships through MySpace?
This seems to be a way MySpace changes peoples’ offline lives. It’s possible to develop a friendship with someone you met briefly at a pub/club. Phoning would be too much. But you might become friends with them through communicating on MySpace.
How do users surf?
Often/usually they spend time looking through friends’ networks of friends and then those peoples’ friends, with no interaction. Usually limit it to people in the same geographic area. So if they reach a profile of someone who lives far away, they will retrace their steps to return to profiles of local people. Mostly surfing seems to be about checking out how good-looking people are.
What’s the most important thing on someone’s profile?
Definitely the photo.
Useful tools?
You can save as ‘favorites’ profiles you like to look at (without the people who own those profiles being informed). Fred didn’t know this but was very excited on hearing about this tool. Also, they thought being able to see number of times a profile has been viewed would be a good feature.
How realistic are profiles?
Users very selective about photos they use. People always significantly less good-looking in real life than on profile.
MySpace also used for?
Charlie said the one thing he will miss is not being able to keep track of club nights and bands on MySpace. Lucy used MySpace a lot to check out clubs and pubs; what’s on, opening hours, entry price.
Attitudes towards businesses using MySpace for marketing?
Not worried about it at all. No feeling of intrusion. Users often hear about things being marketed through ‘bulletin’ on MySpace homepage (e.g. X-men), but easy to ignore.
Use MySpace in 10 years time?
Charlie said “I don’t have time to have a life and be on MySpace”. They indicated they only used it because they had a lot of time on their hands. None could imagine spending much time on a social networking site when they are 30.
Other social networks?
Basically they just use MySpace. Charlie and Fred thought Bebo maybe for younger people. Lucy hadn’t heard of Bebo.
Emails enticing you to join social networking sites…
Considered really annoying. Charlie said if he received such an email he will delete it straight away and make a point of not joining the site concerned and advised us, ‘Stay away from emailing people’.
Promotion of social networking sites in other ways?
They were of the opinion that either a site would work organically, or not at all. Advertisements for a site would make no difference.
Use of MySpace forums and chat-rooms?
None of 3 used these.
