experiments

Do you ever notice how trends start? How do people get suckered in? Who determines which trends are a go and which go bust?

With facebook and other such websites, it makes it so easy for people to experiment with society. Now, I don't know if this is what actually is happening, but it doesn't seem too far fetched that Murdoch is out there using this for his gain. Like everything else.
For instance, why wouldn't sociologists or psychologists select a few people to change their display names to their first name and middle name? Then seeing who followed the trend, they can see who is likely to follow the crowd. What kinds of people were most influential in getting the name changed. What age group was most likely to participate.

Or did one person just randomly decide to change their display name and everyone else blindly followed for no reason? Why?

I think there is a lot more tracking of what we post on our webpages than we expect. Who knows who is tracking this information or why, but it has been proven that computers know what webpages you have visited and the ads on your pages reflect what you're interested in. This has been happening for at least the last decade. Yet no one worries about this? Computers and the internet probably aren't worth all the bother. No one will stop using them though. It's a sad world we live in.

I have not changed me display name. I don't fully understand that point. It's not "cool" and it's not unique since everyone's doing it. If the point of being on facebook is connecting with others or networking, it seems counter intuitive since you don't typically introduce yourself to someone as your first and middle name. So when they go to search for you one facebook they may not find you.

This is one trend I completely and totally don't understand.