Old Friends Old Flames

May 24, 2010 10:15 AM

Does anyone know of any research into social media platforms and the phenomena of looking up people from one's past? Surveys? Sociological Research?
posted by elis to Human Relations (3 answers total)

No research off the top of my head, but a few years ago there was plenty of media opinion on marriage break-up and the UK site Friends Reunited.
posted by einekleine at 11:08 AM on May 24, 2010

This study claims 20% of divorces cam be blamed on Facebook. It's a shallow article citing apparently shallow research, but one would assume that much of the FB interaction might be with old acquaintances.

For the record, I think there is a serious problem with confusing correlation and causation in this article.
posted by COD at 1:40 PM on May 24, 2010

I did a survey about Facebook for a class. Don't have the stats on me at work, but among the reasons given for using Facebook, a lot of people cited that they contacted people from high school/college.
posted by too bad you're not me at 2:27 PM on May 24, 2010