Social media was first created as a way of connecting people together, starting with MySpace and expanding with TheFacebook. It was first created in 2004 by four students who had attended Harvard University: Mark Zuckerberg, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes. The name was later changed to Facebook and quickly became the largest social media platform in the world, according to Britannica.
Now, with our vastly improved technology with other platforms such as Snapchat, TikTok, and Instagram, there is a collective feeling that Facebook has lost its popularity.
Deanna Cruz, a senior, comments that “only old people use Facebook” which is why she uses TikTok instead.
Cruz’s opinion may be facilitated by the fact that a majority of students have seen their parents and/or grandparents use Facebook more.
For the younger people who utilize Facebook, they do so out of necessity rather than socialization.
Ryleigh Wakefield, another senior, uses Facebook every day in order to “check the bus office” due to having a late bus the majority of the time.
In an article from Le Monde, it was expressed by Tom Alison, the Director of Facebook, in a press conference that “Facebook is not dead nor dying.”
Despite what many on different social media platforms have commented, such as Cruz, Alison’s statement held true. Facebook had kept up with the times and transformed into what every other social media platform had become.
The change hadn’t gone unnoticed by its older users.
According to Amy Wood, a local online business owner: “Facebook started out as a way for friends and family to connect and to find others with common interests, as well as providing information about your local community.”
Wood’s closer experience to Facebook, due to her business, had given her the full experience of the change, describing it as “a platform for advertisers to target us, and misinformation to be spread,” as opposed to the “once peaceful and enjoyable experience.”
Facebook has, overall, become a social-less media rather than the connectivity it provided when first created.
Image: Google
