Social Networking Sites

So I will be comparing the four following social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr.

The similarities and differences between these sites are actually pretty interesting. Each has its own purpose and style. Each involves different types of social interaction.

In my opinion, Facebook is definitely the most socially comprehensive out of the four sites. It reveals the most personal information about its users. Each user profile displays their photos, name, location, age, birthday, relationship status, friends, "likes", and so much more. Facebook seems to encourage people to upload all of this personal information by advertising themselves as a friend-based network. When I say friend-based, I mean that Facebook has the "add friend" feature, therefore, any two users that are not Facebook friends have limited viewing access to each other's profiles. For two users that are friends though, all of this information is usually pretty accessible. Facebook also seems to have the most extensive messaging features. Nowadays, not only can you directly message people back and forth but you can video chat and send phone calls.

Twitter can also be used to display a ton of personal information, but through a different style. Twitter  communication is based on user "tweets". People are able to post statuses up to 140 characters long. It's really up to each user how personal they would like to get with these statuses, but this freedom allows people to get creative with what they are saying and how they are saying it. Twitter also has a privacy feature like Facebook. Twitter users can set their accounts to private which only allows their approved followers to view their tweets. Also like Facebook, there is a direct messaging feature, but much less extensive. In my opinion, most of the communication done on Twitter is done publicly. Facebook can be quite private with its extensive messaging. The type of interaction is quite different too. The idea of twitter is that users post a status. It can be a thought, word, mood, literally anything, but it is not necessarily to start a two-way conversation. People can retweet each other, which is like reblogging a post.

Similarly to Twitter, Instagram can be as personal as the user wants it to be. The most obvious difference though, is that this social network is entirely photo-based. People can still comment back and forth as they would on a Facebook picture, but there is no option to post anything else. They do have a direct messaging feature incorporated into the app, though. Just like the two other sites, people on Instagram can "like" one another posts, and there is a similar privacy feature. Unlike Facebook, and similarly to Twitter, Instagram is based on "followers" and "following" rather than "adding".


Tumblr seems like a hybrid of Twitter and Instagram. Tumblr originally, and for the most part, was created and is a blogging platform. But, it has become just as much of a social networking site as the other three. Unlike Instagram, many users on Tumblr post and repost photos that are not theirs. It is based almost entirely on reblogging. A seemingly unique aspect of Tumblr is the anonymous questioning feature. Users can write to each other's blogs anonymously. This site is also based on followers and following. Out of the four sites, this site seems like the most emotionally expressive one. People on Tumblr seem to express themselves much more than on the other sites. This could possibly be because many of users' posts are not of themselves, therefore can somewhat "live" or express vicariously through pictures that they find ideal or interesting.