Facebook’s Impact on Society

By Sarah O’Malley


In February 2004, Mark Zuckerberg, a student of Harvard University, launched the social media website we all know and love as “Facebook.” When it first originated, “the facebook” was meant for the campus of Harvard but within 24 hours of existence, 1,200 students had already signed up and before he knew it, Zuckerberg’s creation had the attention of all United States universities. 

In 2006, Facebook was extended to the point where anyone with an active email was eligible to sign up. It remains free to sign up for this website but it still gains profit through advertising revenue. According to Zephoria, as of October 2015, worldwide, there are over 1.49 billion monthly active Facebook users, which is a 13 percent increase year over year. Also, there are 1.3 billion mobile active users. Five new profiles are made every second and the highest traffic rate of users logging onto their Facebook usually occurs in the middle of the week between the hours of 1 pm and 3 pm. 

Another interesting statistic that was stated by Zephora was that every 60 seconds on Facebook, 510 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, and 136,000 photos are uploaded. It is evident that the success of Mark Zuckerberg’s original idea has made a huge impact on society all over the world. 

Being that at first Facebook gained the attention of students in college, it generally caught the eyes of younger generations. But over the years, this has changed because now parents and even grandparents are connecting on facebook to get in contact with people they have not seen since high school, college or even someone they grew up next door to. 

Social Groups and Job Groups

Aside from the fact that Facebook has become just another addictive social media website, there are so many reasons for one to enjoy this website. One of the great things that stands out to me about Facebook is the usage of groups that people create. In particular, people use Facebook groups to get jobs. For example, there are many families and college students that belong to groups that will help with different babysitting opportunities. Personally, I have put these groups to great usage and was honored with seeing a post that gave me a job for the entire school year in 2014 and 2015.

I also love the idea of being able to keep in touch with my family in Ireland for free, being that if we were to text message or call each other, it would cost money being that we are so far away. Not only are you able to connect with family, but also friends that one may not be able to see as often as they may like. Stemming off of that idea, Facebook allows one to chat with one another without everyone seeing their posts. 

Another huge idea is, seeing as when one gets a new computer, one may lose all of their pictures that they had saved, when one has a Facebook account, they are able to see pictures they’ve posted and pictures they’ve been tagged in as long as they’ve had their account. Being that you have one account on Facebook, your pictures save over the years and so do all of the pictures that everyone tags you in.

Overall, Facebook has remained popular, and is even becoming more popular for people of all different generations. Even though all these different addictive social media sites are on the rise, like Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter, people still decide to make use of their Facebook pages for many different reasons.


Sarah O'Malley is a senior studying Communication Arts at St. Thomas Aquinas College.


Works Cited:
https://zephoria.com/top­15­valuable­facebook­statistics/
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2007/jul/25/media.newmedia