I'm with Mark - although I hear these terms (both "facebook" and "myspace" as verbs) mostly as transitive verbs, describing the action of either looking at someone else's page or requesting someone else's friendship - as in "I facebooked him, he looks cool" or "She myspaced me, it was weird." So as for a verb that describes just the act of just being signed on and using the sites for whatever general purposes, I don't hear people saying "I was sittting around facebooking yesterday" or "I myspaced for a few minutes this morning." (I hear this activity described as "...so then I was on Myspace/Facebook for a while, and then...") I'm not sure why this distinction should be, other than that Myspace/Facebook are perceived as more like "places" where more specific things (messaging, friending, commenting) are done, whereas emailing and IMing are activities in their own right -- but I'm curious to hear if this is a common usage that I just don't ever hear. Lauren On 6/16/07, Mark D. Johns <mjohns@luther.edu> wrote:
richard.ling@telenor.com wrote:
Hello all,
I am wondering if there is a verb describing the use of social networking sites such as My Space, Facebook etc.
With the use of email, there is mailing With the use of IM there is IMing or chatting With just looking at stuff on the net there is surfing
However, I don't know what the verb describing the use of social networking sites might be.
You might say social networking, but you also do that at cocktail parties etc. Is it virtual networking?
Any help would be appreciated.
Rich Ling
Among undergrads on our campus, at least, "facebooking" has definitely become part of the lexicon. -- Mark D. Johns, Ph.D. Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Communication Studies Luther College, Decorah, Iowa USA http://academic.luther.edu/~johnsmar/ ----------------------------------------------- "Get the facts first. You can distort them later." ---Mark Twain _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
Join the Association of Internet Researchers: http://www.aoir.org/
-- lauren m. squires lx: http://polyglotconspiracy.net cmc: http://sociocmc.blogspot.com