Facebook, where don’t we see it these days? It’s EVERYWHERE. Adverts, posters, singers, actors, the lot! I don’t know how it just happened! One day my friend was talking/recommending it to me, next second I’m hooked on it as well.
Even Right now in this lab session, as I was rolling around in my wheelie chair I saw 14 people (which gave me weird looks) using Facebook out of the whole class which consisted of 16 people!
What is it?
Well basically it’s a massive scale, free social networking website, which depending on the type of user they can practically do anything within reason. Its main purpose is to allow anyone to create a custom profile about themselves and to keep in contact with their friends and family through instant messaging, wall posting and private messaging.
Facebook is also used for things like social gaming (automatically posting scores and results on their wall), event making, groups and social pages which connect people with the same interests. It practically takes our social time with people and extends it beyond our standard form of face to face or mobile communication; we now have a better form of connecting with people whenever we want to.
History of Facebook
Facebook was launched in February 4th 2004 by 4 university students studying at Harvard University. (Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes) They started off making a website called Facemash, which was a website similar to a one called Hot or Not (a dating website which consisted of rating images of people from 1-10). The project initially started off as a local website allowing only students of that university to join in, but due to the popularity and creation methods, was shut down. They (mainly Mark) then started on creating the new website which we now know as Facebook. As the popularity grew the limits of the website were extended so much we now have around 845 million users using Facebook Today!
Downside
Despite having major good points about, it has several flaws too. Looking at the percentage of users, half of the whole pie chart is covered by users aged 25 and below, meaning a large percentage of the overall users are of a younger audience.
As well as providing a great resource to them it also creates a big distraction for us as students.
After ironically doing a survey on Facebook, The results support my theory but cannot be used to conclude anything as there aren’t enough participants.
My personal opinion
Honestly speaking, the website is amazing. I’ve lost cost how many times it’s resolved and helped me plan events and to instantly contact someone through its messaging system. It’s also helped me meet new people and to share laughs and memories all over again. But I have to step back a bit as it has also one of the biggest distractions of my life, so many times I’ve stopped working, due to checking Facebook over irrelevant things (I’m actually on it now as I’m typing this :/) and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.
At the end of the day you can love and hate Facebook, it just depends on self control and maturity.
Biblography
What is Facebook? Definition from WhatIs.com . 2012. What is Facebook? Definition from WhatIs.com . [ONLINE] Available at: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/facebook.html. [Accessed 29 February 2012].
Facebook Demographics Revisited – 2011 Statistics | Web Business by Ken Burbary. 2012. Facebook Demographics Revisited – 2011 Statistics | Web Business by Ken Burbary. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.kenburbary.com/2011/03/facebook-demographics-revisited-2011-statistics-2/. [Accessed 07 March 2012].
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