FACEBOOK DIVIDE, FACEBOOK NATIVE AND FACEBOOK

IMMIGRANT
YUNG, CHUNSING, ALAN YUNG

University of Saint Joseph, Macau SAR

E-mail: alanyung@usj.edu.mo alan@alanyung.com

Abstract- Facebook with the largest group of daily active user on social network was the largest subset of digital divide.
Facebook native were user who joined Facebook as student, and Facebook immigrant were those who joined Facebook in
later days after school. The two groups of people who were opt-in plus people who were opt-out Facebook construct the
situation of Facebook divide. Own personal discretion, privacy, financial matter, technical skills, literacy, were reasons for
people to opt-out. 40 out of the 56 counties with population over 20 millions had over 50% as Facebook users. The Facebook
divide thrived the situation of social inequality in different aspects. The Facebook divide situation shall push us to
contemplate on the possibility to reach these two groups of people in-Facebook and out-Facebook.

Keywords- Facebook, Social Media, Digital Divide, social inequality, Facebook Divide,

Biography to Internet during the time as college student, and

Chun Sing Yung (Alan Yung) is a PhD candidate of
University of Saint Joseph, Macau. Previously, Yung
had worked in printed media, business development,
digital contents and online media in sales marketing
and management positions for two decades. Yung's
education background included international trade,
marketing management, sociology and political
science, from Scotland's Robert Gordon University,
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and University of
Hawaii at Hilo respectively.
Facebook and the World
Facebook's one billion plus daily active users
worldwide are sizable enough to conclude that
Facebook does matter. People's heavy usage on
Facebookhelp to bridge online & offline for people
with different type of entities who want to make
connection, made Facebook a subject for researchers
interest. Facebook began in the United States and
kept growing since it was offered to college students
in 2004. In 2006, it has opened up for all people age
13 and above around the world. According to
Facebook company information as of Sept 2016,
there were an average of 1.18 billion daily active
users; there were 1.79 billion monthly active users;
there were 1.66 billion mobile monthly active users;
approximately 84.9% of Facebook daily active users
were outside the United States and Canada (Facebook,
2016). When we compared the number of Facebook
users to the population ofcountries around the world,
as if Facebook “would be a country”, Facebook
would be the largest country among 12 others
countries over 100 million people in population.
These numbers were significant enough not to be
ignored by any academic disciplines involve human.
Facebook native and Facebook immigrant
The Internet, debut by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, we are
using today began in August 1991. Most likely
people age 45 and older did not have internet access
they acquired Internet-related knowledge through
works or after work classes.The age of 45 is a turning
point age to tell apart people who may have lesser
knowledge on using the Internet. Digital immigrant
and digital native were two connotations to portray
two groups of people with different level of
knowledge on the digital society. Digital native could
be regarded as the generation of people born in the
80's when daily encounters were digitalized , while
digital immigrant could be regarded as the group of
people who learnt to get familiarized and used
computers and the Internet at later stage of their adult
life in 80's. The cut off time between the two group
could never be agreed, and it is regarded a gap
between two broad generations (Akçayır, Dündar, &
Akçayır, 2016; Asing-Cashman et al., 2013; Crook,
2012; Wang, Myers, & Sundaram, 2013; Wolf &
Goldkind, 2016) .With the same logical thought, the
debut of Facebook in 2004, was a turning point for
people who acquired Facebook knowledge in school
or outside school. Students who joined Facebook
since 2004 and onwards are Facebook native,
whereas people who joined and acquired Facebook
skills outside collage and thereafter were Facebook
immigrant. People who did not have Facebook access
was Facebook excluded. There were gaps between
Facebook natives, Facebook immigrants, and
Facebook excluded.The two groups of people plus
those people who did not have access to Facebook
constituted the situation of a Facebook divide society.
Facebook Divide
Digital divide referred to the gap between two groups
of people of access to information and
communication technologies (ICT) services, devices,
and information (Büchi, Just, & Latzer, 2015; Hill,
Betts, & Gardner, 2015; Kwong, 2015; Lee, Park, &
Hwang, 2015). Facebook 1.79 billion user was a
subset of the Internet. Inevitably people with access
& without access to Facebook created a gap and

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45

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 Facebook Divide, Facebook Native and Facebook Immigrant

construct the Facebook divide phenomenon. Table 1
listed 40 out of the 56 counties with population over
20 millions had over 50% as Facebook users.
Societies have divided by Facebook access. Various
types of Facebook information access, applications,
live video, might put those people without access in
adverse position. For instance, live video might allow
viewer to take first hand information to make political
decision; breaking news post from major news
services allow a person to make investment decision;
a check-in activity on Facebook allow a user entitle to
discount or gifts on spot; pages and groups activities
allow unknown people come together and increase
their social capital. All these might give Facebook
users advantage on certain live event, while those
without access fall into the inequality situation.
Facebook divide deepened the "digital inequality"
(Deursen & Dijk, 2014; DiMaggio, Hargittai, &
Table 1
others, 2001; Katz & Gonzalez, 2016; Mendonça,
Crespo, & Simões, 2015) between people who have
access and people without access.
CONCLUSION
There appears no sight of slowing down or
alternatives to overtake Facebook at this moment.
The Facebook divide situation would continue and
deepen the digital inequity. Further research might
consider different situation created through Facebook
divide which lead to inequality. Facebook is the
largest online social network provider and if any
other new comers who overpass Facebook, a divide
situation with another connotation will prevail. Future
research in social science, management practices, and
other academic shall take Facebook divide into
consideration.

Proceedings of Researchfora 1stInternational Conference, Berlin, Germany, 3rd-4th March 2017, ISBN: 978-93-86291-88-2
46

Electroniccopy
Electronic copy available
available at:
at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2947269
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 Facebook Divide, Facebook Native and Facebook Immigrant

Note. Conference (Vol. 2013, pp. 3015–3017). Retrieved from

1. The population ranking is based on the population
estimation by CIA in 2016
2. The population figure is July 2016 estimated by
CIA
3. The number of Facebook user age 13 and above
was recorded on 22nd October 2016 from Facebook
advertising system.
4. The Facebook penetration rate is calculated by the
Facebook user age 13 and above to the total
population
5. The internet penetration rate is quoted from CIA
World Fact book
6. Facebook percentage of user as of the internet
users
7. The ranking of an internet website is based on
ranking by Alexa.com
8. Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of
Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland,
France, Germany, Greece, Hungary,
Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta,
Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia,
Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
9. Congo, Democratic republic of The
10. Burma is Myanmar
FB = Facebook
NA = data not available
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Proceedings of Researchfora 1stInternational Conference, Berlin, Germany, 3rd-4th March 2017, ISBN: 978-93-86291-88-2
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Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2947269