Facebook Lexicon

A new feature has made its public debut on Facebook in recent weeks – Lexicon – a tool for following language trends across profile, group, and event wall postings.

The Lexicon is a neat feature that maps the frequency of word usage per day on Facebook walls. For example, you can enter “work, tired” into the query box to compare the number of times each of these words have appeared on the walls of every Facebooker over time (searchers can adjust time range). Lexicon accepts up to five terms, and each term can be a word or two-word phrase made up of letters and numbers (however, if the search term appears too infrequently, it won’t appear on the graph).

Above is David Cho‘s especially telling Lexicon graph, charting the frequency of use of “break,” “drunk,” and “vacation” from September ’07 to April ’08. His analysis:

..The blue line is for ‘break’ peaking at Thanksgiving, Christmas and around March when spring breaks happen, and in comparison to the word ‘vacation’ (the yellow line) that no one ever really uses when you’re that age [of most Facebook users]— I figure if you could segment this by just people who were alumni or unaffiliated with a school the disparity wouldn’t be as high. The green line is ‘drunk’ which peaks every weekend, the highest point being New Year’s Eve.

Facebook Lexicon