15 Years of Driving Facebook

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The 15th anniversary of Facebook was recently celebrated on February 4, 2019. It’s insane to think how long Facebook has been a part of our lives, shaping our culture, driving the way people interact with media. I first heard about Facebook exactly 10 years ago, right during the decline of another once-popular, social media network, MySpace. I remember joining Facebook for the sole purpose of connecting with my classmates in high school, the ones who had already abandoned AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) and MySpace months before I did. I remember how simplistic Facebook seemed to me at the time, this is in strict comparison to MySpace, which allowed its users to customize their pages using HTML coding. Not to mention, there were plenty of accompanying websites created just for HTML layouts, making the customizing process that much easier. Facebook seemed to be void of all those creative processes that attracted me to MySpace during its heyday. I just remember feeling pretty unimpressed about the application from the very beginning. This probably explains why even now, I rarely use Facebook– I don’t even have the app downloaded on my iPhone. I’ve simply never been a fan of the social network. Contrary to myself, most people I know seem to never get enough of the Facebook app, using it as a conduit for communication, the spreading and sharing of news, organization for various interest groups, and so much more. Facebook is by no means a perfect social network; many of its users take part in various forms of bullying and other questionable and/or destructive behaviors. This leaves us with just one question, is Facebook good for the world…or bad?   

In his book, Mass Media in a Changing World, George Rodman states that “systematic research into media effects, however, did not begin until the 1920s” (Rodman 31). After the rise of the media research field, different studies into the effects of media were conducted at different time periods using different mechanisms, source material, and types of evaluations, all resulting in various different results/findings of how media impacts society. One theory to rise from this field of research is called the ‘individual differences theory’, according to Rodman, this means that people with different characteristics will be affected by mass media in different ways (Rodman 43). To put in plainer terms, this means that the degree of effects media (in this case, mass media) will have on people/individuals are dependent on that person’s interests and overall persona. I will be fleshing out the rest of this post bearing this specific theory in mind…  

According to Vox , US Congress-member, Ro Khanna, believes Facebook to be an app with an overall net good impact on the world because of Facebook’s impact on mass communication. Khanna states that Facebook is certainly occasionally abused by hate groups, foreign interference, etc. and due to this sinister nature of Facebook usage, the platform is in dire need of structural changes from Facebook’s leaders, if ever to be considered truly good for the world. I would half agree with Ro Khanna, for the simple fact that Facebook is a medium that’s allowed for so many advancements in mass communication and mediated interpersonal communication through organization, mobilization, and easing communication and access to information. However, on the very apparent downside, Facebook has also contributed to suicides, bullying, exploitation of private information, disinformation, and several other social catastrophes. In my opinion, the scales of whether Facebook is good or bad for the world are just too even, and personally, I don’t believe that Facebook has actually been good or bad for the world. I think the individuals who use them are the ones that make Facebook “good” or “bad”.   

According to an article in The Atlantic’s by Julie Beck, the social network Facebook is full of weak-ties and vestigial relationships. The website’s yearbook-like format forces humans to remain connected to people that they ordinarily wouldn’t speak to because of natural causes. Furthermore, Beck asserts most Facebook users with a lot of Facebook friends do not even talk to most of the people on their friend list or even have the cognitive abilities to remember more than a few hundred individuals in totality. In this way, Facebook can be viewed as bad for the world since it imposes meaningless connections that almost feel unnatural. Beck does see some “good” in Facebook as well. She states that instead; Facebook viewers keep up with these acquaintances through “ambient awareness,” defined as “awareness of social others, arising from the frequent reception of fragmented personal information, such as status updates and various digital footprints, while browsing social media.” Beck states that advantages can be found even in the weak-ties of Facebook, with some people even preferring to ask weak-ties Friends for assistance or help when needed over their actual close friends on Facebook. In this way, yet again, I can see both negative and positive effects that Facebook inflicts upon the modern world. Of course, all individuals are different and possess different characteristics innately, so some may never talk to their weak-ties, while some may constantly keep in contact with these relationship types. Individual behavior plays an enormous role in the types of interactions that can occur on the platform.   

Facebook allows users to have a lot of input and pretty much make up the bulk of other users’ feeds. It’s their messages, pictures, videos that fill the newsfeeds for other users to witness each day and interact with daily. If the platform is being used for good, it’s because of the users. If it’s being used for bad, it’s because of the users. If private information is being stolen and sold, it’s because of the individuals that are allowing the selling of that information, in this case the people who run Facebook (I’m looking at you Zuckerberg!). Bottom line, a medium cannot necessarily be considered good or bad for the world. At the end of the day, Facebook is just a vehicle driven by mankind and it’s up to the driver (the individual) to decide if they want to “turn right” (be good) or “go left” (be bad).