Most of the 350 million facebook users around the world spend more time searching for specific content than aimlessly browsing news feeds or friends lists, according to research conducted at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.

Researchers have dubbed the practices "social searching" and "social browsing."

 People engage in social searching when navigating facebook in search of certain information about a specific person, group, or event; users engage in social browsing, on the other hand, when surveying the general landscape, such as their newsfeed or wall, without looking for specific information.

During the study, participants were seated at a computer and told to navigate Facebook for a determined amount of time. Participants could view anything they wished during that time, as long as they stayed on the Facebook website. Using screen-capturing software, researchers were able to view every action that each participant made while on the site. They attached sensors to various parts of the participants' bodies to measure potential emotional responses as the participants navigated Facebook.

"We found a more positive response from participants during social searching, or when they had homed in on a particular target," said UM Communications professor Kevin Wise. "Ultimately, it appears that Facebook use is largely a series of transitions between browsing the environment, then focusing in on something interesting or relevant."

Wise says that this was an exploratory study to move past how people say they use Facebook in favor of studying their actual behavior. "Rather than asking people to report their uses of Facebook, we wanted to see them in action," Wise said. "We wanted to see if there is a way to categorize Facebook use, not based on what people say about it, but what they actually do when they are using it."