Term Paper Topic - Gabriella DiFulvio

I'd like to research social networking sites and their impact on our ability to interact with people online versus person to person contact. I think with the growing popularity of sites such as Facebook and Twitter, online communication has taken on a new set of rules and regulations that were not always present. Understanding how individuals communicate through these sites and how this affects their communication with others in the real world would be an interesting topic to further research. My major points would include a brief history of both Facebook and Twitter, studies that describe online communication vs. person to person interactions, and how younger generations are directly affected by the prevalence of online communication.