How Will Facebook Be Remembered?

by eshatzen on 11/08/11 at 1:36 pm

At least once a week a new story emerges in the media that involves Facebook in some fashion. The number of Facebook-related news stories seems to be ridiculously high, but what is more astonishing is the range of topics of the released stories. From uplifting tales of reconnecting with loved ones, such as the father who found his daughter on Facebook after he hadn’t seen her in 48 years, to disheartening stories where people are getting divorced and families torn apart.

There have been many reports of people updating their status while on vacation and coming home to an empty house because they were robbed. We’ve also heard about the 16-year-old girl who forgot to make her birthday invitation private and the subsequent police arrests that occurred in front of her house after 1,600 people tried to crash the party. People are even losing their jobs for inappropriate pictures finding their way online and others using Facebook as a drug network.

Some people even believe that Facebook is a threat to national security. In the “Security Threat Report 2010” created by Sophos and consisting of interviews from 500 firms, over 60% replied that they believe Facebook causes the greatest threat to national security of all the social networking sites. The reality is that while many people only use Facebook to connect with people, there are still some people in this world using it for bad things.

However, Facebook has been used for good and has contributed to society in a positive way. The most notable example is the 2011 revolution in Egypt, which is being deemed by some as the “Pocket Revolution” since many believe that it would not have been possible without Facebook. Activist and marketing manager for Google, Wael Ghonim, was able to reach Egypt’s youth on Facebook to orchestrate the first of many protests that ultimately led to the overthrow of the Egyptian government.

So why are there so many stories in the news linked to or a result of Facebook? Perhaps it is because nearly half of the entire United States population and over 750,000 million people worldwide have a Facebook account. Across the world, 95 countries and over 100 different languages (June 2011), Facebook is rapidly increasing in popularity and more people are joining the colossal social network. This massive number of users has led to the nickname, “The Third Largest Country” in the world, and inevitably making headlines.

It is doubtful that even Mark Zuckerberg, the website’s creator, ever believed Facebook could have an impact of this magnitude on society. A married couple in Egypt named their newborn child ‘Facebook’ to show their gratitude for making the revolution possible. Will there be more grateful people or will people want to see Facebook destroyed?

Over 7 million users in North America deleted their Facebook accounts in May of 2011. We can only speculate why numerous people in the United States and Canada forfeited their Facebook accounts, but perhaps it is due to the rise of companies inspecting the Facebook pages of prospective employees prior to employment. So as to avoid scrutiny, people are proactively deleting their accounts. Another view is that we are witnessing the beginning of Facebook’s decline in North America.

The real question is what is next to come? Will Facebook be remembered in history for overthrowing governments, for adulterous house wives, as a place to connect with friends and family, stalk ex-boy or girlfriends, meet new people, or will history see Facebook for something else?

Is Facebook going to introduce something new and continue its stranglehold on global social networking? Will Facebook be held responsible for an act of terror and dissipate? Or will Facebook be overthrown by a new website, as MySpace did to Friendster, and Facebook did to MySpace?

While we may not know the answers to these questions now, we do know that for the time being, Facebook isn’t going anywhere, and odds are, you are logged in right now!