A metaphorical house of Facebook: usage based on space syntax

Abstract

Online social networks are an increasingly popular means of making new friends or maintaining existing friendships. These social networks have replaced some traditional spaces in the real world, but few studies have examined what these new spaces look like in terms of virtual geographies. Facebook is the world's largest online social network, with billions of users sharing content and messages every day. This huge amount of traffic attracts researchers' interest in the behaviour of Facebook users. Facebook can also adjust their policies based on the user behaviour. While previous studies of Facebook user behaviour have relied on questionnaires which are subject to potential risks and limitations. This study directly analyses Facebook user behaviour by designing a model to predict how various types of users analogise their use of Facebook to everyday spaces.