Facebook: The Social Network

Facebook, not one of the best social networks, but the social network. Approximately 500 million people use Facebook worldwide. 500 million, do you know how many people that is? That’s 7.6 percent of the world population. I’m sure that you use it, that your ten closest friends use it, that your parents have thought about using it, and that you may even know some people whose animals have one. Everyone I knew was on Myspace no less than two or three years ago, when I knew about a site that was just for college students called Facebook, but now that has all drastically changed. Facebook has become a household name all over the entire world. The question that has to be begged, is how and why did this all happen?

I’ll start off with how. If you don’t know the name already, Facebook was “co-created” by Harvard drop-out Mark Elliot Zuckerberg. On October 28th, 2003, the then Harvard sophomore, Zuckerberg, created a website called “Facesmash,” where people would go and vote on who the more attractive person was out of two people’s pictures on the website. He did this by hacking into Harvard‘s computer network, and taking students’ information. This was the first of it’s kind for Harvard, and generated 450 visitors and 22,000 photo views within its first four hours of existence. The social network had it’s beginning. He got into a little trouble for the hacking and what not, but then launched “TheFaceBook” in 2004. At first, it was only for Harvard students, then it expanded to other schools like Yale, Columbia, and eventually to all other major schools. People knew that it was different, and were immediately attracted to the possibility of being able to connect with their friends at any time of the day, share pictures, write to each other, and just stay connected in ways that they never could have imagined to be possible. It was the beginning of the revolution of the social network.

Zuckerberg then took on other people like Eduardo Saverin,  Dustin Moskovitz, Andrew McCollum, and Chris Hughes to help promote the website. Some of these friends eventually became enemies and actually sued Zuckerberg, but all that is for another time. The company dropped The from its name after switching to facebook.com in 2005 for $200,000. The website kept becoming more and more popular, and its popularity made it become more important, and its importance then caused it to have a huge price tag placed on it, like many things in this world. It is currently worth $11.5 billion dollars. That is how Facebook became the social network. The why isn’t that more complicated, and comes down to what we, as people, have become to depend on.

The why stems from our need for pleasure, individuality, and among other things, a value of importance. Facebook does that for us. I know that I love to wake up with a nice red notification symbol with a five or a seven in it, and I’m impressed if I see a two-digit number there. It’s just like how we get excited if we receive a package in the mail, or even a letter with our name on it.   Facebook gives us pleasure, whether it’s a guilty or innocent one. For many people, The social network has become a substitute for the simple joys of life. We go onto Facebook, send people messages, like their statuses, comment on their pictures, join groups, and expect nothing less than at least some form of recognition reciprocated. We feel important, or releived that others recognize us, when someone posts something on our wall. We measure our friendships by how many pictures we are tagged in with those who are closest to us. We’re not really in relationships unless our relationship status says so. We are addicts, and the social network is, as Edward Cullen stated, our own personal brand of heroine. We strive to be recognized by others in order to give ourselves a sense of individuality, but unfortunately, we are just like everyone else who is doing it on Facebook.

Don’t get me wrong, I personally love the social network, but only because I see it for what it is and use it for my advantage. I also doubt that Zuckerberg studied psychology and kept it in mind while creating Facebook in order to suck everyone into it. Mark Zuckerberg will go down in history for what he has done for, or to, the internet. In any case, the social network is both a great and dangerous thing. Now go and post this article on it.

P.s. There’s a film coming out based on the creation of Facebook called “The Social Network.” It’s about Zuckerberg‘s troubles, fame, lawsuits, and enemies. It’s also based on Ben Mezrich’s book, The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding Of Facebook, A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius, and Betrayal. Here’s a trailer for it.