In particular the data show how the Facebookwalls were certainly func-tioning as a valuable means of exchange for those students who were making activeuse of Facebookwith their peers on the course. Indeed, in terms of education-relatedinteraction, Facebookwas used primarily for maintainingstrong links between peoplealready in relatively tight-knit, emotionally close offline relationships, rather thancreating new points of contact with a ‘glocalised’ community of students from othercourses or even institutions. In this sense we would concur with Ellison’s conclusionthat Facebookrepresents an ‘offline to online trend’ in that it serves a geographicallybound campus community, as opposed to the ‘online to offline trend’ often identifiedby internet researchers where people meet up with previously unknown online‘buddies’ in real life (Ellison, Steinfield, and Lampe 2007, 1144).
jdstewart10 on 10 Sep 14This annotation is useful as a way to counteract any negative thoughts about Facebook.