The New York Times has an overview today of ways that social scientists are studying group behavior using Facebook. With over 58 million users, the site provides scholars with a remarkable amount of raw data. The site has no policy that prohibits researchers from pulling data about users for academic study.
Areas being looked at by researchers include the ways that individuals form relationships or form online identities and areas involving poltical activism, race, and self esteem. One group of researchers is examining data from the student body of an entire class to see how the students change over time. Some scholars do caution about the data that can be obtained with Facebook, since some minority groups tend to use competitor MySpace.
article at NY Times