Happy Birthday Facebook

I remember the first time I heard the term networking. I was fresh out of college and working for a small law firm in downtown Minneapolis. Not as exciting as it sounds, but to a 22 year-old kid it was seemed pretty cool. My boss invited me to join him for a networking lunch. I'm certain my first thought was that we were going to break bread with some local TV news anchors. I was disabused of this notion after two long hours of listening to lawyers drone on about class action lawsuits and attorneys' fees. Networking, I discovered, was not what I had thought it would be nor what it would turn into.

 

Fast-forward 25 years and the social network has become a beast with many heads - Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram, Vine, Pinterest, LinkedIn - just to name a few of the heavy hitters. Thanks to the PC and tablet and smartphone connecting is just a post/like/comment away.

(For a change) I am not going to opine regarding the underlying causes that have given rise to the exponential growth in social networking. No one is interested in the fact that social networking's popularity emerged as an outgrowth of an increasingly isolated yet technologically interconnected culture. Or the chicken/egg hypothesis stating that widespread access to social media technology has actually been the cause rather than the outcome of cultural isolation. Meh. No matter.

Instead I would just like to wish the Mother of All Social Networks - Facebook - a happy 10th birthday.

That's right - way back on February 4, 2004 - The Facebook, as it was known then, was created (some say stolen) by Mark Zuckerberg. I'm sure no one - least of all Hoodie Mark - could have foreseen Facebook's global impact; or the way it would change from a gizmo that tracked where all the hotties were on the Harvard campus into a creative networking tool utilized by individuals, media outlets and businesses of every size. At some point the question morphed from an incredulous You're on Facebook? to an equally surprised You're not on Facebook?

On the eve of Facebook's historic birthday, researchers at Princeton University have released a study which claims that the social networking giant's heyday is past and predicts that it will lose 80% of its active users within the next three years (no joke). In other words, 1.2 billion users will quickly turn into 240 million by 2017. Researchers based their predictions on comparing Facebook to the bubonic plague, claiming that Facebook has spread like an infection but - at the same time - humanity has slowly becoming immune to its attractions and will eventually rid itself of the "disease."

To this I would only say, "and the children shall lead them." Kids were the first to hop on Facebook and the first to become resistant to its charms.They are leaving it in droves, not curing themselves entirely, but allowing their Facebook pages to lie dormant, isolated and sterile. Just like their love of Elvis and rock & roll back in the 1950's, young people were ahead of the curve. As soon as Elvis and his kind went mainstream, teens were already turning their attention elsewhere, for example to a quartet of shaggy-haired Brits. This century is no different, with kids actively using Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and Vine - leaving their bewildered parents in the dust. Our kids have simply been infected with other, more instantly gratifying viruses. So it goes.

But will Facebook wither on the vine like Princeton researchers predict? I doubt it. Adults are much slower to change than their children. But rather than abandon Facebook, we have transformed it into whatever we want it to be - whether the Zuckerbergs of the world like it or not. Case in point, I now tend to use my own Facebook feed primarily as a source of political and pop culture news - or as a way to stay plugged into trends and interests that are unique to my personality. And I'm not alone. So, rather than discuss the merits and/or ills of Facebook (there are plenty of both), I see it as networking platform that can be highly customized to suit each users tastes. And what's wrong with that Mark?

Case in point - I will leave you with four Facebook page recommendations I encourage everyone to check out. They will make you smile, laugh or think - something we could all do more often on a daily basis:

1. The Onion - Satire and sarcasm at its best. The Onion's mockumentary style has been around a lot longer than The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, but still consistently skewers what's trending in American culture and politics. https://www.facebook.com/#!/TheOnion 

2. e Cards - You know the ones I'm referring to - sharply funny, sometimes outrageous, even mildly dirty, but always on point. https://www.facebook.com/yourecards123 For example:

3. Humans of New York - Brandon Stanton started the HONY page in 2010. After quitting his job on Wall Street, he started posting photographs of average New Yorkers on his Facebook profile. In the first year, Brandon was only taking pictures without captions, however he began having conversations with his subjects and adding their small quotes as captions. He takes pictures for 3–4 hours and then posts a few of the images to his blog and Facebook page every day. The captions range from joyous to tender to heartbreaking to devestating.

https://www.facebook.com/humansofnewyork?ref=br_tf

4. Portraits of Boston - Think Humans of New York in Beantown. Secretly, I'm waiting to see my son :) https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Portraits-of-Boston/434849653264439


Happy Birthday Facebook. Enjoy your teen years but watch out - they are awkward and full of growing pains. And accept right now that in ten years you won't look a thing like you do today. Shit happens. Sounds like something on an e card.