Facebook: The Evolution

Facebook has undoubtedly become the most widely known social network available today.  What started as a social network for college students, has become so widely used that it now has users of all ages, including teenagers, parents, and even grandparents!

At nearly 500 million users today and growing, Facebook has blown Myspace, it's closest competitor, out of the water.  But what has caused such a one-sided phenomenon?

Mark Zuckerberg founded " thefacebook " in 2004 at stanford university as a on-line network to connect with friends,soon it spread to other colleges and to the whole world later on.

In 2004, "thefacebook" was used mainly in the United States.  However, Facebook is now used worldwide.  The reason for it's enormous popularity is because of it's user-friendliness, as well as the conglomeration of it's various competitors sites.  Facebook has taken the different popular aspects of other social networking sites, and has molded all of them into what has now become Facebook. 

Christopher Nicholas gives two great reasons for Facebooks popularity is his Blog:

1. Me, myself, and I — in other words the site is all about YOU (or me rather).  People LOVE to talk about themselves and Facebook capitalizes on that to the extreme. Think it through. You set up a profile featuring…YOU.  Look at YOUR options — edit MY profile, view videos of ME, view photos of ME, what’s on YOUR mind, and write something about YOURSELF to name a few features.

2.Curious George — admit it. You’re a Facebook stalker. Half of your Facebook friends you would never call to chat with, but you don’t mind surfing through their pictures or watching their videos or reading their wall posts.

If that's not enough, This Youtube video features a story from CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg that talks about what brings all the great things in Facebook together.

Facebook is used for personal communication, business advertising, and just about about everything inbetween.  It's a fact, humans are socially inclined.  We constantly want to know what is going on around us, and who is doing what.  

CyberBULLYING

Bullying is something we are all familiar with.  It's easy to recall witnessing an act of bullying, as I can think of countless examples I witnessed throughout my Middle and Highschool days.  Whether or not you played the part of the victim or the attacker, it's played a role in each of our lives.  Most cases used to consist of physical bullying, or verbal/emotional bullying, but what is this new concept of Cyberbullying?

Cyberbullying as defined as:

"The willful and repeated harm inflicted through the use of computers, cell phones, and other electronic devices."- Hinduja & Patchin

With today's generation of youth's becoming so technology oriented, bullying has moved from the physical and emotional harassment on the playground and has taken on new mediums such as Email, Text Messages, Social Networking Sites, etc. 

According to a 2011 Article by Karen Sudol: 

“Cyberbullying” has become the latest and most pervasive method of meanness in the already tough world of teens. Cellphones, computers, social-networking sites — all can be used to great effectiveness by those intent on harassing, threatening or humiliating their peers.

The impact of Cyberbullying is much more intense today, as victims cannot escape the harrassment because it follows them from school, to their home, and anywhere they go. 

The graph at right shows how Cyberbullying

 victims felt after exposed to online Bullying.



Social Networking Sites and Cell Phone text messages account for the most vicious examples of Cyberbullying, because of their ease to spread a message to such a large audience in a short ammount of time. 
Just as with traditional bullying, teens are targeted online for many reasons: sexual orientation, weight, attractiveness, intelligence, even hobbies. (Sudol, 2008).

Steven Goldstein tells us why Cyberbullying is much more devastating that face-to-face bullying with his explanation: “When I was bullied as a kid, my bullies would have to look at me in person and see the tears in my eyes, which is not an easy thing to do,” Goldstein said. “It’s easy emotionally [now] because you don’t have to deal with the emotions of a person being bullied face to face.”

Cyberbullying has led to several deaths amongst youths in the past decade, including the death of Ryan Halligan, a 13 year old boy who was relentlessly bullied in school and also online.  Below is an emotional interview from Frontline of Ryan's father.

In order to prevent Cyberbullying from continuing, people need to be informed just how serious an issue this is.  After the death of Ryan Halligan, his father went on the speak at over 100 schools, where he told his story and asked students to be more aware are respectful with what they are doing.  Parents need to talk with their kids, and students need to find the courage to stand up for each other when they witness Cyberbullying, rather than sitting back and letting it pass.  If this is done, it may be possible to prevent future stories like that of Ryan Halligan from occuring.

Social Networking: Identity Theft

It's a concern that we should all be aware of.  Today more than ever, people have the ability to abuse the power of social networks in dangerous ways.  Some cases can be more extreme than others, with the most minor examples consisting of making simple alterations to an online profile to make themselves more appealing to others.  Unfortunately however, some are much worse.  Extreme examples of people mis-representing themselves online includes credit card scammers, and identity theives--which will be the topic of this post. 

It's more common that you think!  In fact, the reason I'm writing on this topic is because of a personal experience.  Just last week one of my Facebook contacts messaged me with the claim that they were stuck overseas, where they had been mugged of their cash, credit cards, and passports.  She then proceeded to ask that I wire her and her family money that she assured me would be payed back upon their return.  Sure enough I called her, and not-so-surprisingly found out it was all a scam.

Robert Siciliano, an internet security analyst gives us insight as to why it's so easy to be hacked in social networks in his July 2009 Article:

"There's a lot of excessive trust in the Facebook world. People have entirely dropped their sense of cynicism when logged on. Apparently, they see no reason to distrust. Generally, your "friends" are people who you "know, like and trust." In this world, your guard is as down as it will ever be. You can be in the safety of your own home or office, hanging with people from all over the world, in big cities and little towns, and never feel that you have to watch your back."

Siciliano has also been interviewed regarding social network identity theft by well-known news broadcasting stations, including FoxNews, two of which are shown below.  Here we are informed of several other reasons that we need to be careful when dealing with social networks.

There are several websites available that can provide helpful tips to avoid social network identity theft.

A few of these sites are listed here:

Identity Theft Fixes

Huffington Post

Federal Trade Commission

I hope you find this post informational, and that it makes you think twice when using your social networking sites in the future.