The Facebook Phenomenon

By Tiffany Queen Navarro

(Photo from sickfacebook.com)

The exponential growth of social networking sites, such as Facebook, could not have been anticipated less than a decade ago. Facebook, developed by then Harvard sophomore Mark Zuckerberg in February 2004 and offered to fellow students by word of mouth, had approximately 1,500 registrants in it first twenty-four hours. Today it has become a cultural phenomenon on an international scale with over 200 million active users, half of which log on at least once each day.

In the Philippines, it has been the newest trend that young people must have. "Facebook Addiction" is an entertaining as well as sobering look at this latest form of communication among humanity. With more than one billion pieces of content shared on the site each week, Facebook has become the addictive destination for the expenditure of time and effort for a massive number of people especially the young people.

The Facebook community has been a great help for everyone. Through this social networking site they are able to arrange parties, get-together and reunions and even reach their long lost friends, classmates and relatives. Moreover, it paved the way to develop new friendships. That is why more and more people are now into signing in to different social networking sites such as Facebook.

Additionally, several sites and organizations are using Facebook as a platform to get closer to their target audiences. Media outfits in the Philippines like GMANews.tv and ABS-CBN Interactive have Facebook widgets on their web sites, making Facebook a usual part of their viewer’s lives. As much as Facebook is defined by its users, Facebookers also define the site itself, so that it adapts to their particular needs.

According to humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow, humans have three basic needs. One of these is the need for love, affection and belongingness. Humans need a sense of self-worth and a personal Facebook profile has become the perfect tool for people to let the world know all about their interests, their thoughts and their life. Facebook allows users to talk and share as much as they like about themselves without fear of being labeled as self-obsessed.

As a new decade begins, it seems that the world’s Facebook addiction isn’t going to stop growing any time soon. Facebook dependency will continue to exist as long as new technology keeps churning out platforms to integrate Facebook in real life.

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