Facebook and society

Introduction:

Now we a going to see how facebook and society are connected.so…

The launch of Facebook's News Feed in September 2006 was a landmark moment for
social media, providing a new way for people to engage with social platforms, and
eventually, for the platforms themselves to better facilitate user engagement by
highlighting the posts of most interest to users.

At that time, Facebook was only just starting to gain momentum, with 12 million
users, though that was already more than double its total audience count from the
previous year. Facebook was, also slowly consuming the audience of previous social
media leader MySpace, and by 2007, they reached 20 million users, Facebook was
already working on the next stage, and how it could keep people more engaged and
glued to its app.

They introduced the Like button in 2007, which gave users a more implicit means to
indicate their interest in a post or Page, and then in 2009, it rolled out the News Feed
algorithm, which took into account various user behaviors and used them to define
the order in which posts would appear in each individual's feed - which, again,
focused on making the platform more addictive, and more compelling.

And it worked -where Facebook usage continued to rise, and on-platform

engagement skyrocketed, and by the end of 2009, Facebook had more
than 350 million total users. It almost doubled that again by the end of
2010, while it hit a billion total users in 2012. This shows us clearly that, the
algorithm approach was working as intended.

Who uses Facebook?

So now Who uses Facebook?

According to a survey of over a thousand people, “females, younger people, and those not
currently in a committed relationship were the most active Facebook users“. Regarding
personality, a study of over 1000 Australians reported that “facebook users tend to be more
extra-verted(communicative) and narcissistic(self-love), but less conscientious(conse-
ancious)(willing to do one’s work thuroughly) and socially lonely, than nonusers“. A study of
the actual FB use of over a hundred students found that personality was a more important
factor than gender and FB experience, with high scorers in neuroticism spending more time
on FB. Meanwhile, extraverts were found to have more friends on the network than
introverts. (“the 10 per cent of our respondents scoring the highest in extraversion had, on
average, 484 more friends than the 10 per cent scoring the lowest in extraversion”).

There are Other findings such as greater shyness has also been linked with more
FB use. Similarly, a study from 2013 found that anxiousness predicted more
emotional attachment to Facebook.
There’s also evidence that people use FB to connect with others with specialist
interests, such as diabetes patients sharing information and experiences, and
that people with autism particularly enjoy interacting via FB and other online
networks.

Facebook has changed the definition of “friend”

Facebook made the world smaller, and it's the most obvious, yet the most important element
of Facebook's early legacy. Whether you're chatting with old college friends abroad, or
messaging your roommate from down the hall, Facebook has solidified itself as an important
tool for staying in touch with those you love, as well as those you met briefly.

Unlike real life when the ending of a friendship can be deeply traumatic, it is
easy to “de-friend”, a word invented to describe ditching a casual colleague
when they are no longer enhancing your Facebook newsfeed.

Facebook has brought an entirely new weight to the terms, “share” and “like”

But Facebook has no hierarchy of friendships. A classmate from one project at

university who you haven’t seen in 15 years, a friend-of-a-friend from a stag
do, or a colleague you’ve never actually spoken to in person – they are all
Facebook friends in the same way as your closest mate.

so

It doesn’t necessarily mean we see them the same way. So,Prof Robin Dunbar
is famous for his research that suggests a person can only have roughly 150
people as a social group. Facebook hasn’t changed that yet, he believes, but in
an interview with the New Yorker, Dunbar said he feared it was so easy simply
to end friendships on Facebook that eventually there may no longer be any
need to learn to get along.

“On the internet, you can pull the plug and walk away. Where There’s no
forcing mechanism that makes us have to learn.”

This study from 2010 (not specifically focused on FB) found that using the
internet to connect with existing friends was associated with less loneliness, but
using it to connect with strangers was associated with more loneliness. This
survey of adults with autism found that greater use of online social networking
(including FB) was associated with having more close friendships, but only
offline relationships were linked with feeling less lonely.
Is Facebook harming students’ academic work?
well…
This is another live issue among newspaper columnists and other social
commentators. An analysis of the grades and FB use of nearly 4000 US students
found that the more they used the network to socialise, the poorer their grades
tended to be . But not all FB use is the same – the study found that using the site to
collect and share information was actually associated with better grades. This
survey of over 200 students also found that heavier users of FB tend to have lower
academic grades. Yet another study, this one from the University of Chicago,
which included more convincing longitudinal data, found no evidence for a link
between FB use and poorer grades; if anything there were signs of the opposite
pattern. Still more positive evidence for FB came from a recent report that
suggested FB along with other social networking tools that social networking sites
could have cognitive benefits for elderly people.
While we've been sharing online for years, it's getting easier and easier. With miniature
computers and high-quality cameras in almost everybody's pocket, the ability to share is
always there — and Facebook has long-provided an outlet for people to lay bare. In 2013,
Facebook users shared approximately 41,000 posts per second, according to online-
advertising company Qmee — that's more than 2.4 million posts every minute.