Facebook

Facebook was created at Harvard, by a young man named Mark Zuckerberg and his roommates. This website started out primarily for college students to connect with friends around campus. It expanded from one college campus, too all the colleges in Boston and eventually too almost every person in the U.S. The use of Facebook started to help friend connect with each other across campus, and help long lost friends find each other after years of searching. As I scroll through Facebook these days I feel like I’m being pelted with advertisement. Advertisement and strange videos have taken over the meaning of Facebook. It has changed into an annoying website that only thirty to forty year olds use the right way. Although my generation still uses Facebook for pictures and other little things, it is on the outs. Facebook started out as a way to connect with new or long lost friends, and to share what you were doing to those who you are close with. In recent years Facebook has turned into to a social media marketing tactic.

            As Facebook has developed over the years, its competition has been developing as well. Instagram and Twitter have developed in way that appeals to the youth, while Facebook hasn’t quiet gotten there yet. Facebook fell behind as its competition sped up and gets bigger every day. Scrolling through Facebook these days the majority of the home page is video clips of random things to lure in teenagers. The soul of Facebook is gone, I feel like Mark forgot about it and doesn’t know where to pick it back up. What once used to be cluttered with statuses about what people were up too, is now advertisements for clothing stores and videos of random amusing things. Instagram and Twitter have stayed true to their primary purpose since they started, so teens have stayed closer to them and got away mostly from the Facebook world. Facebook has turned into a place where thirty to forty year olds are the only ones who use it for the right reasons. Once teenagers started noticing adults all over Facebook they needed to get out of there, and get out of there fast. 

            Although I still use Facebook, clicking out of it I always find myself wondering why I was just glued there for so long. I have realized the only reason is for the silly videos that distract me from doing productive things. I also realized that the majority of people that post status’s these days are older people, who are trying to stay true to what Facebook was made for. When I started using Facebook my parents had zero idea of what exactly it was. As they caught on they wanted to be in the loop too, and once teenagers start feeling violated and realizing their parents and grandparents can see everything their doing, they bolt. They bolt and find another type of closed social media to go on and find their friends, and Instagram and Twitter provide that. There’s no silly advertisements, no random videos you don’t want too see, and best of all, there’s no parents. Teenagers like to say what they post, post what they want, and do what they want without their parents looking over their shoulder. So when they get on twitter and they pick and choose who sees their tweets and they pick and choose what they want to tweet about, Facebook starts to feel like a dinosaur.

            Facebook has changed over the years tremendously. The youth has strayed from it and has started to primarily use twitter and Instagram as ways of communication. Starting out targeting youth and now primary active users are thirty to forty year olds. Now the industry seems like a scam to me, random videos and pictures to try and get the youth to come back. It has turned into a social media for marketing. In order to thrive once again Facebook needs to clean up their site. Get rid of the virus ridden strange things people like to click on and start up from scratch. It needs to start thinking about more ways to incorporate more social media tactics. What was once considered a social media should now be describes as “social marketing.” They need to start and figure out a way to help themselves, its not too late.