Facebook - The Evolving Face of Friendship

Facebook has been a revolution on the social media scene and has changed both the definition of a friend and that of friendship. For many of us Facebook has become a mandatory part of our lives. There have been various studies conducted on usage of facebook across the world. The results in real percentage terms vary considerably, but one fact is consistent that a majority of us are addicted to social networking sites. One study has pegged about 50% of facebook users would check their updates first thing in the morning.

This is strange is it not? While the advertizing world attempts to reach out to the world, this invention is something that keeps pulling audience towards it consistently. Social meeting places come very commonly to humans. Starting from royal baths of the ancient Roman era to today’s modern multiplexes and malls, they are all over the place. It was only a matter of time before someone explored the possibility of mimicking the living world into the virtual one. The creation of facebook today seems very natural but to be able to look into the social patterns of humans and touch a raw nerve to create facebook was a sheer act of brilliance. Facebook is unique in ways, normally as an individual you control your personal information and on no other medium would you tolerate anyone leaking you personal information without your approval. Facebook provides a subtle social pressure on every user to expose more and more of his or her personal information. Whoever would have thought that they would voluntarily post their last night party pictures in every gruesome pose the next day. Every unacceptable norm in the real world is flouted on facebook and is considered acceptable. The new “no” is “yes” in the FB world.

Facebook has taken an identity of its own. The $60 billion company has entered people’s households and it’s no longer surprising to see kids expressing their love for their parents and lovers expressing their love for each other on FB. The intense desire to go public with everything from your daily chores to milestones in your life to posting achievements has become the norm of the day. It’s no longer cool to make polite conversations, it’s smarter to update your profile and wait for someone to reply. FB is the new father of the world. FB decides that you can only have 5000 friends and no more and people are still left wondering, when you can have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter, then what’s the big deal with FB. You are as cool as the number of friends you have on FB. Sub-500 is passé, while above 2000 and you’re a living legend, well almost - you got to reach that magic figure of 5000 to be called god. Business enterprises had their internet proxies all set up to block social networking sites. This trend continued for the past few years. Now these very organizations have realized the potential that these sites hold as a strong marketing tool. Most organizations are moving towards opening access to social networking sites in office. This is seen as a motivational tool rather than a hindrance. Today radio shows, TV programs, daily soaps, business enterprises, movie stars and even political parties have their own FB pages.

For such a new business to reach $60 billion in just 6 years since inception is a wonder in itself and goes a long way to reaffirm our faith in the power of the internet and the social fabric of mankind. And all Mark Zuckerberg and Co. did was build something to network the objects closest to our hearts, our friends. FB is a virtual site with a heart. Facebook remains the living legend, till someone digs deeper into our hearts and hits the next gold mine…