To me, looking at images on Facebook is equivalent to people-watching.

I wondered if I was the only one viewing rather than “friending,” observing rather than poking, and clicking through instead of stopping by. I found out I’m not alone.

I interviewed 17 students and found that most people spend more time observing on Facebook than networking.

To me, there are two ways to interact with a social network. One is “active”: “friending,” poking, posting, “scrabulous-ing” and just generally creating content and connections. The other is “reading”: looking at profiles, walls, picture albums, events and activities. I do not see this as “passive,” as I feel we actively learn by reading.

There is a lot of excitement about what can be done on social network sites – an easier way to keep in touch with more people compared to phone or e-mail, inform others about events, and find playful ways to interact with distant and close friends.

Some students brush Facebook off as superficial, but keep returning to it. They return as not only authors, but viewers.

Alice Doo, a third-year art history and poltical science student, used to be more involved in using Facebook. She too deems it superficial, but added she has had to actively cut down the amount of time she spends browsing the site.

To Doo, now “it’s just a waste of time.”

More than two-thirds of the students I interviewed spent more time looking than actively participating. This group included those who spent anywhere from 10 minutes a day to two hours, and the predominant activity for most of them was viewing.

Even the site’s name implies it is a “book” to be read, a collection of faces to be sifted through. There’s a lot of talk about what can be done on social networks, but a lot less speculation about what happens when people are learning from, rather than participating in social networks.

What is it that leads us to click through, looking and watching without saying something? Maybe I’ll never know, but other Facebook users might have some more insight to offer.

A lot of people do use the site for active networking purposes.

Juliet Ovalle, a third-year sociology student has found Facebook is a very useful tool for social activism. She has seen that the captivating power of an image can draw people to an event or cause they might not have given a second thought to otherwise. Her primary use of Facebook is not for images, but rather to organize and network social activism events and causes.

Ovalle spends much of her time involved in activism, and thus actively networking. She, unlike many students, is less concerned with her digital appearance.

“Usually people are presenting themselves to you and when it’s something public like Facebook, you’re getting the entire picture rather than just what they’re presenting for you specifically,” said Matt Nazareth, a fourth-year political science student. Facebook can be a window into other people’s personalities, or at least aspects of themselves they’re willing to make public.

If social network site users are continuously going back to view social information, they must see it as intriguing on some level. For some people, what is learned on these sites is useless information, but others choose to retain and use it.

Natalie Ma, a second-year environmental science student said Facebook helps her connect with people socially. It reinforces connections that are already there and allows these connections to be expanded.

Of course it’s only preliminary research, but I know from my field work and my interviews that UCLA has been reading – a lot. Reading for school? Maybe not (or maybe so), but reading for a social network education – yes, yes they have.