As new social networking sites begin to appear, offering everything from mystery webcam chats to 140-character message boards, one just beginning to catch on focuses on a different aspect of social interactions: Q&A.
Formspring.me, which links to both Facebook and Twitter, allows members to post questions and answers on others’ pages, either anonymously or under a username. Senior communication major Stacey Acevero said she enjoys being asked fun, interesting questions by other users.
The site’s popularity is picking up among the university community and in the College Park area as students, Terrapin athletes, university officials and notable alumni log onto the site to address burning questions submitted to them anonymously.
U.S. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who graduated from this university and represents College Park, answers questions about his political ideals on his Formspring page.
One user asks Hoyer, “What is your stance on Social Security?” He answers: “I want to preserve Social Security for Future Generations by restoring fiscal discipline to the federal government and ending the practice of borrowing from Social Security for other programs.”
John Wechsler, who worked with business partner Ade Olonah to launch the site, said they started Formspring in November 2009 to make it easier for people to create comment boxes for blogs, a trend that was rising in popularity.
“We set out to give people a single-purpose environment to ask and answer questions — essentially to do what they were already doing. We just made it a lot easier for them,” he wrote in an e-mail. “We wanted to make it easier for people to learn more about their friends and themselves by asking and answering questions.”
Although Wechsler said they have no intended audience, he replied to a question on his Formspring page that 33 percent of users are between the ages of 18 and 34. He also said the site has had more than 50 million unique visitors in the past month alone.
Brian Vandegrift, a freshman business and psychology major who recently jumped on board the growing trend, said he uses Formspring to interact with friends through an innovative medium.
“I heard about Formspring from a friend who made an account before I did. We were having fun with his site, so I figured I would make one as well,” he said. “I like that Formspring offers anybody and everybody the chance to express themselves the way they truly want to. If someone wants to say something to a certain somebody, they can hide behind anonymity to get whatever they need out.”
Acevero joined Formspring to give her friends and fans an online space to ask her questions about her social life and modeling career aspirations.
“The best thing is being asked silly questions, or asking silly questions or using it to anonymously find out someone’s favorite restaurant, band, etc., so you can surprise them on a later occasion,” she said.
But the anonymity of the site also causes controversy for some users. Acevero said she has gotten rude, overly personal questions on her Formspring page.
“I do get bothered when people ask me rude or snarky questions,” she said. “It has happened, and people do it anonymously and hide to be a pest or to mess up your day.”
Vandegrift said while he likes the anonymity the site offers, he also understands the downside.
“It seems like Formspring quickly became a medium through which people vent negative and hurtful comments to people they might not care for,” he said. “I, personally, have not had any bad experiences with people anonymously being rude and/or mean. But this is most likely because I haven’t advertised my Formspring account that well, so not many people know mine exists.”
Wechsler said the negative comments are just like those people can hear in the physical world.
“Formspring is a microcosm of the world we live in,” he said. “You have the good and the bad. We would love to see a world where all mean-spirited speech disappeared. But as long as we have people who think it is OK to say and do mean things, we will have to deal with this issue — offline and online.”
Users who don’t like the anonymity have the ability to turn it off on their Formspring account, Wechsler added.
“Whatever someone asks you remains unseen by everyone until it is answered,” he said. “The best way to stop someone like this is to not give them the pleasure of a reply. Simply delete it and move on.”
And though both Acevero and Vandegrift said they have gotten sucked into the site, they said they don’t think Formspring has the same appeal as other social networks.
“I feel like Formspring will catch on with more college students, but it will not accumulate to anything nearly as popular as other new websites, such as Chatroulette,” Vandegrift said. “No one will want to use Formspring if the only questions they are getting are rude [or] disrespectful.”
bauer at umdbk dot com
