According to the article
by Zuniga and Valenzuela, about 1 in 3 Americans use Facebook. I’m
pretty sure that that number might have gone up within the last two
years. Maybe. If people aren’t using Facebook, then they’ve at least
heard about the site. Facebook has basically become omnipresent in
today’s society. In terms of MySpace and Twitter’s rankings as
couple of the world’s most accessed sites, I think that MySpace’s ranking as
dropped drastically while Twitter’s rank has gone up since 2009.
The article talks about
how social networking sites have allowed for democratization and for the voices
of minorities to be heard. While the numbers show that those that have a better
socio-economic status rely less on SNS’s services, it does not necessarily mean
that the lower end of the socio-economic spectrum is using it for political
purposes. Perhaps the lower class people spend more time on social networking
sites because they do not have the means to participate in other leisurely
activities like going to sporting events or the movies all the time. Instead,
they’re stuck on Facebook or Twitter or Tumblr.
The article by Wittkower
about Facebook discusses the use of social networking websites using an
existential point of view. Not that I’m any sort of philosophy
expert, but the question has often crossed my mind about why people use
Facebook. Is it really to connect with friends? Is it to start drama? Some of
my friends don’t even know half of the people in their friends list in real
life yet they still keep them as “friends.” I guess Facebook is a place where
you post your thoughts, feelings, and experiences and just hope that it matters
to someone. Even if it doesn’t, it’ll always be there for you to revisit thanks
to Facebook Timeline.
