The Office of Electronic Marketing conducted a "Social Networking Sites Survey of New Students" during the spring orientation sessions for incoming fall 2007 first-year students. Highlights of this survey include:

• In response to the survey question "Do you own your own computer?" all but one of the 186 first-year student respondents indicated that they owned and/or planned to buy a computer with 179 (96.2%) already owning at least one computer
• Facebook was far and away the most popular social networking site with 151 (81.2%) of 186 respondents reporting some level of "Engagement" including 56 (30.1%) who indicated a HIGH Level of Engagement by selecting “Can’t live without it"
• MySpace was the most familiar social networking site with 185 (99.5%) of 186 respondents indicating "Awareness" and only one respondent selecting “Never heard of it”
• LiveJournal and Xanga ranked third and fourth in both "Awareness" and "Engagement" measures
• Regarding college and university participation in social networking sites: only 20 respondents (10.8%) indicated a negative "stay out of them altogether" opinion while 81 respondents (43.5%) selected a favorable "provide school info" opinion. The remaining respondents had no opinion or were neutral on the matter.

If you would be interested in seeing the full results of the "Social Networking Sites Survey of New Students" or the questionnaire instrument used, please contact Sue Downing, Director of Electronic Marketing, sdowning@suffolk.edu.