zlacker

I am suspicious of the methodology because of how quickly Facebook rolled out across most colleges/Universities. I want to say within a year. It feels unlikely that the data would be granular enough (and the survey given frequently enough at each University) to reach these sorts of conclusions.

>>rconti+(OP)
Facebook was also an entirely different site in that time.

> Quickly spreading to other colleges in and outside the US, the network was made available to the general public in the US and beyond in September 2006

Facebook didn't even have a news feed feature until September 2006. The students studied here were using a site that was nothing like it is today.

>>rconti+(OP)
You are right, and Facebook's roll-out is discussed in Section 2.2 of the paper.[1] The data sources are discussed in Section 3.1. They use the National College Health Assessment which surveyed students each semester.

[1] https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/256787/1/1801812535....