social:vitak

I’m a doctoral student in Michigan State’s Media & Information Studies (MIS) program. My research interests center around some of the overarching themes of Web 2.0, mainly in the areas of identity and interaction on social network sites and, more recently, in the realm of online games. I am currently working on a NSF-funded grant looking at collaboration on social network sites with MSU professors Nicole Ellison and Cliff Lampe.

I completed my master’s degree at Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture & Technology (CCT) program in Washington D.C., writing my thesis on the role social network sites play in changing the face of interpersonal communication. This research was facilitated by a quantitative analysis of college Facebook users through a survey of more than 600 Georgetown University undergraduates. A digital copy of the thesis can be accessed here.

Over the past two years, I have been involved in the maintainance of two professional blogs in addition to this one. The first is on the Pew Internet & American Life Project website. I am currently a consultant for Pew and have been with the organization since 2007. I coauthored the Project’s Digital Footprints report, released in December 2007, and its Teens & Video Games report, released in September 2008.

The other professional blog I have written for is gnovis, CCT’s peer-reviewed academic journal, where I was previously the peer review manager. My blogs on gnovis typically focused on trends in social networking.

If you are interested in reaching me, either to tell me how awesome I am or to talk about technology and society, I can be reached via the “contact vitak” tab on the right.