The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Wired Campus

May 2, 2008

Stunning Revelation: Facebook Used for Fun

If you’re one to use Facebook, by now you’ve likely noticed miscellaneous maps and movie quizzes blanketing people’s profiles. To date, there are 23,160 of these applications available, and they’re strewn across 22 categories.

Now comes a nifty little chart that ranks the available applications by type. The chart comes from the number-crunching blog FlowingData, which is run by Nathan Yau, a graduate student at the University of California at Los Angeles. It’s probably little surprise that an overwhelming majority of Facebook applications used in profiles fall into the “Just for Fun” category — reaffirming the site’s status as a prime time-waster. —Hurley Goodall

Posted on Friday May 2, 2008 | Permalink |

Comments

  1. I have to pity someone who equates fun with time-wasting.

    — Jeff McNeill    May 2, 08:35 PM    #

  2. well, there’s a difference between real fun and time-wasting fun, to be fair

    — 1day    May 3, 11:02 AM    #

  3. Surely the definition of fun is “time-wasting.” Fun isn’t supposed to serve a purpose!

    — Emily    May 3, 08:08 PM    #

  4. Debating the nature of fun only demonstrates to many how little of it we must enjoy…

    — Oh my    May 4, 10:47 PM    #

  5. “Surely the definition of fun is “time-wasting.” Fun isn’t supposed to serve a purpose!”
    That’s a cynical view, Emily. There’s a great deal in life that can be both worthwhile and fun. Just depends upon what you enjoy.

    — Rob    May 5, 07:21 AM    #

  6. I’m confused. I think this chart is for available applications, not applications that people actually use. You should change the wording in this report.

    — Katherine    May 5, 08:53 AM    #

  7. These blogs are fun but time-wasting.

    — J. Jones    May 5, 09:19 AM    #

  8. But isn’t wasting time fun?

    — Liz C    May 5, 10:34 AM    #

  9. Hurley, did you have fun wasting your time writing this blog entry? I had a moderate to minimal amount of fun reading it. Less than a minute wasted in reading, only 440 to waste until I can go home and waste some more in front of the boob tube.

    — Nick    May 5, 11:48 AM    #

  10. Thanks for allowing me to waste some time reading and writing about whether fun must waste time. It’s been fun!

    — Eric Peterson c/o The Tequihua Foundation    May 5, 01:44 PM    #

  11. check out the nifty little chart link an http://adonomics.com/dthen

    — Jackie    May 5, 02:42 PM    #

  12. How to have fun and not waste time – check out the free online games “The ESP Game”: http://www.espgame.org/ and phetch:
    http://www.peekaboom.org/phetch/
    Brought to us by the guy who invented the captcha.

    — Melissa    May 6, 12:42 PM    #

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