I'm often reminded why it's not good to live in the past, but the world has changed so much in the last 10 years. 10 years ago, Facebook was barely being introduced to the internet, with what started out as a way to connect with friends and build a "wall" like a myspace. 10 years later, Facebook has evolved and the company has gone public with shares of the company traded on the Nasdaq ( and trending up). Facebook, though, is representative of so much of what's changed about everyday life in the
Before facebook: read the newspaper, get the news. (Wall St. Journal, New York Times, whatever city you live in)
After facebook: read the news through facebook posts shared by friends (Buzzfeed, etc.)
Before facebook: call your friends, have a long conversation
After facebook: post on friends' wall, send them facebook message.
Before facebook: deliver messages through word of mouth, talk to a lot of people
After facebook: click the "like" button and your other friends will eventually see it on their newsfeed through Facebook's complicated algorithms.
Before facebook: talk to people in the elevator, you might learn something, make a new friend.
After facebook: all the people I need to be friends with are on facebook, no need to befriends strangers.
Before facebook: difficult to send out party email invitations, reminders ,etc.
After facebook: Facebook sets the invitations, reminds one constantly that you have event today.
Before facebook: don't realize that it's someone's birthday, just lets it slide and no one is the wiser.
After facebook: see that it's a facebook friend's birthday, debates whether you're close enough to send a "Happy Birthday" post.
Before facebook: past friends who moved away or became distant, stopped talking to fade into memory.
After facebook: quietly defriend.
Before facebook: express honest emotion, call or meet someone in person to tell them congratulations or how excited you are.
After facebook: post emojis of how you're feeling
Before facebook: slow to catch up on friends' gossip
After facebook: news spreads fast.
Facebook, just like the digital age itself, has a lot of benefits and has provided a great boost to communication for our society, but at what cost? People's social interactions are less personal, people have less time for other people and instead spend time on their phone, etc. I don't know how many times I've gone on facebook and scrolled around only to realize a few seconds later that it's mostly junk, pictures of what other people are doing that they post to make themselves look cool or to best other people's facebook posts, that's not really big news unless you're REALLY into what other people do on their vacations or how their baby is doing that day or which ramen places in LA are the best. Facebook is like sugar: a necessary evil, great for all of us since so many people use it and generate information, but the more we consume the more we want and drift into redundancy and wasting of our time. How much is too much facebook? Suggested use: go once or twice a day on facebook just to make sure nothing urgent is going on, respond to facebook messages briefly without getting too engrossed in a conversation (have a real conversation in person or on the phone!), don't post much, don't like everything. (Use your likes with discretion to not cheapen them!) And in the big picture, use facebook, like everything else, in moderation.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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