How Facebook Changed the fabric of our society

  For someone who is not a millennial, I can say I jumped on the social media bandwagon, pretty early. Before Facebook, I had a Myspace account, and at the time, it seemed like the ultimate way to be cool. In those days, Myspace was the cheaper alternative to having a personal website.  For folks who were self-employed, it was the easy way to put yourself and your business out there without breaking the bank.  This was the forum where all the cool people met. I would spend hours up on hours of my day on this social media network because, for me, it was the hub for pop music.

At its prime, Myspace was the most visited social media site in the world. In the summer of 2006, it surpassed google as the most visited website in the United States (Appleton Creative 2013).  However, the downward trend for Myspace began when the company was sold to News Corp for half a billion dollars. The new owners flooded the site with ads without necessarily doing anything to improve user experience.

Then came Facebook, which was originally targeted at college students, minimally diminishing the popularity of Myspace. BY 2008, Facebook had overtaken Myspace basically because it had a more user-friendly website.  Today, Facebook is the most widely used social media network, boasting of over billion users worldwide. Its claim to fame is has revolutionized the way people interact.

On a personal level, nothing beats the connectivity platform provided by Facebook. I believe that wen the story of inventions that transform the world is told, Facebook would be a major character. The world is now a smaller place because of Facebook. The beauty of it is that it created a platform that allows people to connect over long distances and reconnect over lost years.

The concept of ‘Sharing’ is something we now take from granted. Before Facebook, we didn’t have the ability to share major events with the people closest to us by a single click of the mouse.  Now, basically every kind of announcements are made via Facebook.  Graduations, births, engagements, weddings and even obituaries are all but common on Facebook.

On the other hand, the phenomenon known as Facebook also has produced some negative effects on the social order of our world. Chief of these is cyber-bullying.  People hide under the guise of social interactivity to be mean and nasty.

In conclusion, Facebook has and continues to have a profound effect social fabric of the world.  With Facebook, we know we can share our lives in a way and with a scope that is different, and still be a dominant communication tool.