Language and Love

Social networking sites (SNS) provide adolescents withopportunities for content generation on a wide range of social issues, providing uniqueinsight into the psychosocial development of adolescence. We explored SNS webpagesviewed by a random sample of adolescents during the initial uptake of SNS use (2005) todescribe their general language use. Adolescents aged 14 to 17 with home Internet accesswere recruited using list-assisted random digit dialing methods. All SNS (MySpace)webpages viewed by participants were captured, and a large, structured set of texts(text corpus) was created from the profiles and message boards therein. Usingconcordance software, word frequency and keyword associations were analyzed. The 346participants viewed approximately 28,000 MySpace pages, yielding a 1,147,432-word textcorpus. Profile sections presented information about the content creator, while messageboards focused more on short conversations with recipients. The most common content wordwas the term love. Profile owners would profess their love for activities, such asdancing, partying, or shopping, followed by their love for family, friends, andsignificant others. SNS offer teens an opportunity to describe and share feelings aboutpeople, places, and things connected to a range of activities and social contacts withintheir online and offline environments. Better understanding of SNS can offer strategiesto adolescents and health care providers for insight into what connects young people ina community