Many people have begun to argue that Facebook is dying. Facebook is full of old people. Facebook has a ton of ads. Facebook is too complicated. To some degree, these arguments are correct.
I will be the first to tell you Facebook isn’t perfect. But, unlike many other people around my age, Facebook is still my favorite social network.
In middle school, Facebook was huge. People added “friends” like it was their job. Millions of photos were posted. Everyone knew what people were doing every second of their life. Many plants were watered in FarmVille. Facebook was the place to be.
When my parents finally let me create my own Facebook profile in eighth grade, I was ecstatic. I was scrambling to find the best photo of myself to impress all the ladies that would be looking at my profile.
I thought Facebook was so cool. Being able to see what all my friends were doing and being able to post funny things on their walls was nothing like I’d never experienced before. Facebook was a perfect step up from the AIM days with Facebook’s instant message interface.
But since the Facebook glory days, many other social networks have popped up — most notably Twitter and Instagram. Although I am a fan of both social networks, both of these outlets haven’t matched the warmheartedness I have toward Facebook.
Twitter serves as a great way to see what people are up to at a glance. However, sometimes there’s so many tweets, it can be overwhelming to scan for information you actually care about.
But, with Twitter, a lot more superficial things come into play compared to Facebook.
No one cares anymore how many friends you have on Facebook. On Twitter, the number of “followers” and “following” is prominently displayed at the top of your profile for everyone to see. As a result, many people become hung up on their following-to-followers ratio — God forbid you follow more people than follow you, because that’s social suicide.
Although at the moment Twitter has less ads on their site, I’ve noticed more “sponsored” tweets sneakily being placed in my timeline. This argument will likely be short lived if Twitter wants to maximize their profits.
Instagram takes the superficial to another level. Everyone’s goal seems to be to get past that first 10 likes as quick as possible so an actual number of likes appears under your photo.
Then there’s the actual photo. Because many people are so thirsty for likes, they feel like they have to look absolutely perfect in every photo they post. But don’t worry, there are many filters and photo applications to enhance your photos.
With Facebook I don’t feel the same sort of judgment and superficiality that essentially runs Twitter and Instagram.
Facebook has evolved nicely throughout the six years I’ve been on the site.
It’s the only place online where I’m connected to a huge variety of friends and family of all ages. Although this may appear as a negative to some, Facebook makes it very easy to block a certain post or photo that you may not want grandma to see.
Facebook also serves as a great resource. With class Facebook groups, it makes it easy to ask other classmates about homework or tests without having to waste days waiting for your TA or professor to respond. It is also fairly easy to create awareness of an upcoming event without having to send out physical invitations.
At the end of the day, Facebook is like looking through that old scrapbook your mom made — you may not want to acknowledge that you love it, but you know you do.
Anthony Herta is an intern at The State News. Reach him at aherta@statenews. com.
