The usage of Social Media.. MSN, Hyves and then Facebook?

Hi everybody,

Welcome to my first blog! My name is Desiree Peters, 22 years old, living in Tilburg and studying Business Communication and Digital Media. During the next couple of weeks I will be writing blogs about interesting subjects that have been discussed by lecturers of different courses. This first blog is about Social Media.


Nowadays we spend much of our free time on the internet and also on Social Media. Giving examples of Social Media is easy. We all know Twitter, Hyves, Facebook, and MSN.. You name it or most people are using it or have used several forms of it. However, looking back at the past years makes me wonder whether there is a sort of logical order in which we tend to use Social Media. During my entire High School period I mainly used MSN and in my last school year I started using Hyves as well. My personal usage of Facebook started later on, after I went on an exchange to Germany three years ago. Many exchange students were using Facebook at that time and I did not want to differ AND of course I did not want to miss out on the opportunity to snoop in the life of others =). Although I'm still using MSN, Hyves and Facebook, I have noticed a reduction in time usage. I have got the feeling that Facebook is a more appropriate and accepted form of Social Media for somebody of my age (22 years) and that MSN and/or Hyves are more childish. Do you also think that we grew over some forms of Social Media? Or do you think it depends on your personal preferences?

Let me know what you think !