How Facebook Has Changed Lives

A look back at Facebook's first ten years

Ten years ago, Mark Zuckerberg and three of his classmates sat in a college dorm room and created the social networking site Facebook. Little could they have known at the time how successful the site would become, but now, ten years after its launch, the stats clearly speak for themselves. With over 1.2 billion people registered as users, Facebook has without a doubt changed the lives of people everywhere. For better or worse, some of the many changes Facebook has sparked include:

 1.    New Ways to Share

Once upon a time, people sent out new baby announcements to let friends and family hear about the latest addition. But now, new baby announcements, along with wedding announcements, graduation announcements, and even moving announcements have become a thing of the past. Now, all of those things are announced on Facebook and other social media sites. And while people don’t think twice about it in today’s world, the opportunity to share big news with friends, family and acquaintances around the world by simply clicking a button is pretty mind-blowing. Prior to the launch of Facebook, such a large-scale form of communication, without factoring email into the equation, would have seemed unfathomable. 

The bad side of this, of course, is some users’ tendencies to overshare. There are only so many pictures of dinner plates and home renovations people care to see before it starts to become a little too much. And the same goes for stories of toddlers throwing up, that new pet who turns around and eats his own poop… there is such a thing as TMI, and sometimes, things are better left unsaid. 

 2.    A Past That Merges With the Present

In some cases, the way Facebook brings the past into the present can be a good thing. It reconnects people with childhood friends, former inspirational teachers, coaches and distant relatives. There have even been some stories of adopted children who have found their birth parents by doing a little searching on Facebook. 

In other cases, however, the past is better left in the past, and bringing it into the present with Facebook can become problematic. This is especially true when it comes to reconnecting with former boyfriends and girlfriends, old flames from long ago, through private Facebook messaging and chatting. And the stats are there to confirm this problem:  according to recent reports from the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, over 80% of divorce attorneys in the United States claim that they have noticed social media playing an increasingly prevalent role in the cases they handle. What’s more, Divorce Online conducted a study in which they found that a third of the total divorce files from this past year had the word “Facebook” included in them. 

 3.    Altered Emotional States

University of Texas researchers conducted a study in 2009 in which they examined the emotional status of 2,600 students, and according to their findings, there was a direct correlation between time spent on Facebook and personal life satisfaction. The more time people spent on Facebook, the more satisfied they seemed to be with their lives. The study went on to reveal that those who were extremely involved on Facebook were also extremely politically and socially involved. And UT wasn’t alone in their findings:  University of Wisconsin researchers revealed that looking at their profiles for about five minutes generated a surge in people’s self-esteem. In 2011, researchers at Cornell University conducted a study that was similar in nature, and the results they generated confirmed what was found earlier in Wisconsin. 

At the other end of the spectrum, there have also been several studies released that link Facebook to a negative impact on mood. There are some who have pointed out that looking at pictures of a friend’s fabulous vacation, adorable new baby, or lavish new home can trigger feelings of jealousy and envy, leaving the viewer with a sense of inadequacy and inferiority when it comes to their own lives. This was confirmed in 2013 by a researcher at the University of Michigan, delivering results that conflicted with their previous study. 

 4.    Ongoing Reunions

One of the obvious perks of Facebook is how easy it makes finding people. Before the dawn of this social media empire, reunion committees were faced with the daunting task of hunting down people who’d moved away, dealing with the frustration of changed addresses, changed phone numbers, and changed last names after tying the knot, making some people nearly impossible to find. Now that Facebook has arrived on the scene, connecting with classmates is as simple as the click of a “friend” button.

Ironically, as easy as Facebook has made reuniting, it has also made the physical act of going to a reunion a little bit less appealing. Ten, twenty and thirty year high school reunions just don’t seem that enticing when people already know what the guy who sat next to them in Geometry ate for breakfast, the names of their lab partner’s five kids and the latest work promotion the valedictorian received. Thanks to Facebook, the social networking tool that allows everyone to get the play by play of their former classmates’ everyday lives, what else is there to know?

 5.    New Ways to Spend Time

It might be a stretch to call “Facebooking” a hobby, but given the staggering amounts of time that some people spend on it, it really isn’t that far from the truth. Whether this is a good or bad thing is as individual as each Facebook user: some might feel that the time spent chatting, liking status updates and commenting on photos was time well spent, whereas others think back to the hours they spent holed up in their dorm room stalking away when they should have been studying or at least going out and having fun, and it makes them want to cringe.

Good or bad, for better or worse, in the past ten years, Facebook has had a remarkable impact on lives everywhere. And while the next ten years of this social networking site is largely a mystery, at least one thing is certain: it’s sure to be an exciting ride.