Jacobs+d+Focus+group+Report

Jacobs D

TO: Social Networking Team FROM: Daniel Jacobs SUBJECT: Social Networking Focus Group Report DATE: March 30, 2010

My focus group session consisted of 5 female college students, We were able to cover all five questions during the 45 minute discussion.

Social networks are increasingly subject to attacks by hackers and predators. Hackers are now targeting users by sending messages to their social networking sites impersonating their friends, and predators who frequent these sites have been charged with kidnapping, raping, and even murdering young women. Our team wished to determine how these threats affect Gen-Y's use of social networks and whether males and females view these threats differently. Information from these session will allow Proximity clients to promote the safety of their social networking sites when targeting Gen-Y users.
 * Focus Group Rational:**

The meeting took place in an online chat room, March 29, 2010.
 * Setting and Participants**:

Angela, age 21, Chemical Engineering CCBC Allison, age 20, Business Marketing Mt. St. Mary's Allie, age 20, Business Marketing, Mt. St. Mary's Megan, age 20, Business Marketing, GW Kelly, age 20, Business Hospitality Mgmt, JMU

We covered all five questions during the session.
 * Session Topics:**

__Concerns about privacy__: All five girls were concerned about privacy. Three out of the five said they were very concerned, the other two were only moderatly concerned. Megan was particularly concerned about an employer viewing what is posted on her site. She also said that at her high school, a networking site can be used for punishment and even now in college a personal site can be used in judicial and academic boards.

__Hackers and Predators__: None of the participants have had any known experiences where their sites were hacked and they have not had experiences with predators. They are not very concerned about it at this time because they do not accept unknown friend requests or open unknown messages.

__Use of Privacy settings__: The participants agreed that the settings are relatively easy and they have friends to help them if they do not understand something about the settings. They all agreed that the privacy settings are important. Kelly mentioned that the settings seem to change every time Facebook updates.

__Privacy Setting Changes__: All of the participants have changed the privacy settings from the original. All five have made their information only viewable by friends, a couple of them have limited access for certain people, such as family members, to specific photographs and information. They say that as they grew older, from when they first started the sites they have gotten less open with their information. This is attributed largely to increased responsibility to jobs and school. Kelly, for example, has changed from her earlier profile, which was viewable by anyone even if it was not a friend, to her current profile, where some of her closest friends cannot see some pictures and information.

__Dating in social networking__: None of the participants have used a social networking site as a dating portal. They state that they do not feel comfortable meeting people online and meet enough people face to face at their schools. In addition, The participants do not allow people who they don't already know to become friends.

This session found that these female participants:
 * Findings:**
 * Are very concerned about their privacy but are comfortable using social networking sites
 * Are not extremely susceptible to hackers and predators
 * Are not interested in online dating

The findings from this report will be compared with the findings from our other female groups in order to see if data is the same across different groups of females. We should also compare these findings with our male groups to determine the differences between male and female users of social networking.