Classmate's and Facebook...?

I feel that even browsing through my fellow classmate's blogs is a form of unobtrusive research. Through their blogs, even if they deal with issues such as media, fashion, non-profits, how their bligs are set up and what their topics are can tell us a little bit about each individual, therefore qualifiing it as unobtrusive research. Even me currently "facebook stalking" instead of fully trying to concentrate on this blog post is unobtrusive because through all the news feed updates and such I'm learning about people, without them fully knowing it.

Going off of that creepy comment, I found Blaine's blog to be interesting when talking about entertainment and technology in regards to unobtrusive research. She discussed the obsession with blackberries in today's society, and I'm not going to lie I am one of those peple who does have a blackberry, and I do love it. Through some of her findings of observing people with and without blackberries and could see how some of it held true. I like being connected with the outside world with the touch of a button. I like that I can be reached any time of day from really any avenue of media, but on the other hand I can see how absurd it can truly be. Technology is really becoming such a huge part of everyday life, even being seen in the moives like Blaine discussed, how "The Social Network" is the new movie out and it's all about the creation of Facebook and how popular it's become. It's truly amazing to see how fast we are able to connect with people all around the world, with the press of a button. It's also amazing to see how we are able to do so much research through all of these avenues, even to see how we can research the current obsession with technology through unobtrusive research. Just how many times does someone check their blackberry a day? How many times does someone go on Facebook? It's questions like this that can be answered to show how much technology has become a part of our lives.

To further all of Blaine's points, my fellow classmate Katie Warner's blog continued the quest of unobtrusive research through the avenue of Facebook, but looking at an opposite side-the non profit side. Katie stresses the fact that, "Nonprofit corporations are companies funded by donations; they rely heavily on the amount of public's that are attracted to their message in order to remain successful." She has an article in her blog that discusses " of social media, and how it is important to utilize the various media outlets to attract your target audience.  Research done showed that 150 million people in the U.S. have a Facebook page and 39 million people are frequent users who “use social media several times per day” Non-profits can take a huge advantage of Facebook, because it;s a great avenue for unobtrusive research. They can take advantage of this because it's a cheap way of gaining information for any organization in large amounts. All in all, both of these classmate's blogs offered great insight to the areas of social media in unobtrusive research. Facebook, as much of a "college distraction" as it is, is a great outlet for unobtrusive research for all organizations as proved in both my classmate's blogs.