Rare News Desk
Amazingly, as of today February 4, 2014, it’s only been 10 years since Facebook began in earnest — it feels like it’s been around forever.
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At the time of its launch, this writer was only 12 years old and the likes of MySpace maintained more than a smidge of relevance. Since that time, Facebook expanded from a Harvard dorm to other dorms, to other colleges and then to everyone. MySpace has all but disappeared and Facebook remains the dominant social media platform of its kind, while Twitter, a different species of the social media genus, comes in second.
Business Insider explained the difference between MySpace and Facebook particularly well:
“MySpace was riotous, vulgar and slightly weird – partly because it allowed users to decorate their pages by adding customized HTML code. Facebook, by contrast, looked preppy, severe and dull. And it was exclusive – you had to be a student at an elite US university to be a member.”
Perhaps it was the exclusive reputation that came with being known as “The Facebook” (for Harvard kids only) that drove public interest; one would think that user-friendly simplicity and a sanitized look and feel wouldn’t be enough to knock out edgy, devil-may-care, customization-heavy MySpace — but no. The “cool kids” and the “elite” were all on Facebook not Myspace, and that fact has only become truer over time.
After a while things that are new and interesting turn into household names, mainstays and necessities.
Facebook’s staying power, despite the rise of other social media platforms makes it the precedent and the standard of social media success, regardless of what that will mean in 20 to 30 years and beyond. After all, a movie called The Social Network — not lower case “a social network” — received rave reviews, won three Oscars, and grossed $96,917,897 in the U.S.
The idea that a dramatization of a website’s beginnings would pique that level of interest is a testament to its influence.
According to Pew Research on the topic Facebook is stronger than ever, with “57% of all adults and 73% of all those ages 12-17” using it. Additionally, “Adult Facebook use is intensifying: 64% of Facebook users visit the site on a daily basis, up from 51% of users who were daily users in 2010.”
Pew Research also lists six basic things about the contemporary Facebook experience that you might find interesting.
1 “Some users dislike certain aspects of Facebook, but fear of missing out on social activities (or ‘FOMO’) isn’t one of them.”
Interestingly, the thing that galls Facebook users the most are attention seekers that have a general lack of judgment, while jealousy seems to play less of a role in gripes.
2 “Women and men often have varying reasons for why they use Facebook – but everything starts with sharing and laughs.”
News flash men and women are different. Shocker, right? Men and women, however, are both humans and one thing all humans can do that no lesser animal can is laugh — we can all agree that sharing laughs is good, healthy, and natural. Facebook helps make the good times roll.
3 “Half of all adult Facebook users have more than 200 friends in their network.”
Among adult Facebook users, the average (mean) number of friends is 338, and the median (midpoint) number of friends is 200. In other words, half of all Facebook users have more than 200 friends, and half have less than 200.
Younger users tend to have significantly larger friend networks than older users: 27% of 18-29 year old Facebook users have more than 500 friends in their network, while 72% of users age 65+ have 100 friends or fewer.
4 “12% of Facebook users say that someone has asked them to “unfriend” a person in their network.”
Drama does happen, even on the internet. While this petty act is commonest among the younger generation (“19% of 18-29 year old Facebook users have had someone ask them to remove a friend from their network”), “unfriending” someone on Facebook remains a particularly striking way to send a strong relationship message.
5 “Facebook users ‘like’ their friends’ content and comment on photos relatively frequently, but most don’t change their own status that often.”
Ah, the status; therein lies the big difference between Facebook and Twitter.
44% of Facebook users “like” content posted by their friends at least once a day, with 29% doing so several times per day.
31% comment on other people’s photos on a daily basis, with 15% doing so several times per day.
19% send private Facebook messages to their friends on a daily basis, with 10% sending these messages multiple times per day.
10% change or update their own status on Facebook on a daily basis, with 4% updating their status several times per day.
Some 25% of Facebook users say that they never change or update their own Facebook status.
Perhaps fitting in with the undercurrent notions of “elite-ness” and “coolness” more people appear more interested in approving of or opining on the things that others do rather than constantly producing mundane material of their own.
6 “Half of internet users who do not use Facebook themselves live with someone who does.”
Apparently, there’s no escaping Facebook’s reach.
Facebook is here, it’s there, it’s everywhere — it’s definitely no farcebook. Even after a decade, the social media juggernaut doesn’t show any signs of slowing down. So without further ado, I say: Happy birthday Facebook.
