Sam Warshofsky

Final Draft
How has Facebook impacted society since its inception in 2004?
As covered in the article A Brief History of Facebook as a Media Text: The
Development of an Empty Structure by Niels Brugger, Facebook was established in the early
2000s by Mark Zuckerberg and four of his roommates at Harvard University. Their intentions
were that students could make a profile and contact one another within the university.
Essentially, it was designed to be an informal version of an academic resource. Within months,
other universities such as Cornell, Yale, Colombia, and Stanford were added to the network
(Brugger 2014). Today, with more than 600 million users, Facebook has adapted to be a place to
share nostalgia over reconnecting with old friends and connect with people from around the
world. Facebook has been adopted by people to be its own community, this is illustrated by how
it positively influences our social skills, how often it is used, how it is use it to convey emotions,
and how it kindles better relationships.

Before Facebook was created liking something was nothing more than a state of mind,
and wishing someone a happy birthday was voiced by a verbal phone call, in person, or by
written mail only. A voting pole put out on The Telegraph UK showed that of the people who
voted 73% think the world was a better place before Facebook (Telegraph Reporters). In the
same article the author(s) quote a tweet from Chris Hardwick saying that #BeforeFacebookI
didnt LIKE things like funerals and divorces (Was Life Better). Facebooks inception
changed the way people communicated emotional struggles without any emotion, even to people
from many countries far away from their own. As a result, after February 4 th, 2004, what was

known as formal conversation began its dissolution and surrender to social medias new form of
rapid fast and at the tip of your finger communication.

It is argued in Jasmine Fowlkes article Why Social Media is Destroying our Social
Skills that Facebooks rapid form of communication has contributed to shattering the foundation
of social skills possessed by the younger generations (Fowlkes 2012). Facebook members are
able to communicate much quicker and therefore expect responses back immediately. This has
encouraged the use of abbreviations and discouraged a formal sentence structure. Comments and
posts are more summarized by not only saying less in meaning, but also in word count. Emily
Drago, at Elon University, explains that online conversation is taken advantage of because it is
easy and used as a crutch to hide behind. She continues by describing how traditional
conversations are not only diminishing in quality, but also quantity (Drago 1). This point of view
is shared by many members of the older generations who grew up without Facebook and other
social media sites.

Facebook has also impacted social interactions. According to the article Teens and
Mobile Phones, Some 38% of teens were daily texters in February 2008, and that has risen to
54% of teens who use text daily in September 2009. Of the 75% of teens who own cell phones,
87% use text messaging at least occasionally(Lenhart 1). These teens are relying on social
media and cellphones as a main source of communication, and less on in-person interactions.
Even when in the presence of one another, teenagers no longer engage on personal levels, and
rely more on the technology of social media to maintain and preserve their relationships

(Drago 2015). This shows how antisocial society is becoming as a result of being so indulged in
other resources, such as a Facebook.

However, there are also benefits to how Facebook has impacted communication within
society. According to Simon Kemps special report Digital, Social and Mobile in 2015, over
240 countries have access to Facebook, as of 2016, which connects people from all around the
world (Kemp 2015). This has helped to make our world feel more connected and more or less all
on the same page. This is a place where individuals can come together in desperate times, or a
time of need. For example, when the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) attacked Paris, France
in 2015, Facebook users came together to show their support for Paris by changing their profile
pictures to the French flag. This was a nonverbal way for people across the world to recognize
the atrocities committed by ISIS, but still convey their sympathy and promote global unity. It can
still be argued that this nonverbal form of communication resulted in less people verbally
reaching out to Paris to show their support, as they relied on Facebook to do so. Overall it is up
to the individual to respond, but Facebook does provide a platform to generate that sense of
support. However, the over sharing of martial can lead to desensitization of the information. In
support of oversharing being a harmful habit, Marco della Cava mentions in his article How
Facebook Changed our Lives, that Facebook has spawned plenty of unappealing habits
oversharing perhaps topping that list (Cava).

With that being said, it is still questionable how real Facebook friendships actually are.
The relationships created online may seem to hold a strong bond, but it is questionable if these
ties are even meaningful relationships or just a false sense of friendship. Since a friend can now
include a co-worker, manager, ex-lovers, friend of friends, families of friends, and in some cases
complete strangers, it is difficult to determine the strength of the relationship. According to
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Oxford University Psychology Professor Rubin Dunbar, these relationships have no emotional
intensity, and out of an average of 150 friends, only four are dependable and only sixteen
would be supportive in an emotional crisis (Dunbar). This shows that many of the relationships
created through Facebook only hold a face value.

With doubts of unfamiliarity, society is evolving along with Facebook, as Facebook evolves as
well. Users adapt to the informality of communication and are still finding a way to balance the
informal Facebook communication with traditional in person conversation.