How will Facebook be used in the future?
By Sara Matthews

Within the past few decades, social networking sites have taken control of the internet. Social websites like Friendster, Myspace, and Facebook allow users to keep in contact with their friends while also giving users an opportunity to make new “online” friends. Relationship-based websites like eHarmony, Match, and Chemistry give singles a chance to meet other singles who have the similar interests without the awkward face-to-face meet and greets of traditional dating. In my digital ethnography, I researched the current uses of Facebook, specifically by the Greek Life Judicial Board and Panhellenic Council of Virginia Tech. The lack of privacy that Facebook provides was causing controversy between sororities as some sororities took on the role of police by turning in other sororities for unacceptable behavior. While I’m sure the creators of Facebook did not create their website for that purpose, people have begun to realize that they can use Facebook to findout virtually anything about anyone else who uses the website. In twenty-five years are sororities going to be using Facebook as a way to enforce their rules? Will Facebook even exist and if so, what will it look like?

With all the popularity surrounding these social networking sites, it’s hard to imagine a decrease in use in the future. Do these websites serve as portals into the future of the internet or are they just a current trend that will slowly fade away? Social networking websites like Myspace and Facebook can attribute a huge percentage of their success to the original and most dedicated users - a young, internet-savvy generation of teenagers and young adults. Most young adults who visit these websites have their own profile that they have been actively updating for several years. However, what happens when these original users graduate from college or find full-time jobs? Will they still make time to check-in on these websites? Will they lose interest in online friendships and focus more on the real-life relationships that they are forming?

Perhaps these websites had these concerns as well. In 2006, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg followed in the footsteps of Myspace and made his website accessible by people of any age and location, rather than exclusively for American college students. College students were outraged and felt as if Facebook would soon just be a newer version of Myspace – where anyone can create a profile with a couple clicks of a mouse, regardless of authenticity. After this seemingly monumental switch for Facebook, Zuckerberg sat down for an interview with Time Magazine. When asked whether he felt that Facebook’s overwhelming popularity was due to its authenticity Zuckerberg responded with, “That's the critical part of it. Our whole theory is that people have real connections in the world. People communicate most naturally and effectively with their friends and the people around them. What we figured is that if we could model what those connections were, [we could] provide that information to a set of applications through which people want to share information, photos or videos or events. But that only works if those relationships are real. That's a really big difference between Facebook and a lot of other sites. We're not thinking about ourselves as a community — we're not trying to build a community — we're not trying to make new connections” (Time Magazine). Zuckerberg even mentions that it is against Facebook’s Terms of Agreement for users to falsify any of their profile information. He also praises Facebook’s ability to foster real relationships, but how is that possible when almost everyone on Facebook has over five-hundred friends?

Facebook also created programs such as status updates, news feeds, and mini feeds. These programs made it possible for the user to know essentially every action of their friends. Nothing was private anymore. Ironically, users were outraged and felt that their privacy was being invaded. People demanded that Zuckerberg remove these programs and give users their privacy back. What privacy? They signed up for a website in which they willingly supplied their correct first and last name, race, birthday, relationship status, location or school, and anything else they felt like – along with easily accessible pictures! These new programs were doing nothing more than making this data more easily available.

Unfortunately, this new tool caused quite a bit of controversy throughout the Greek Life at Virginia Tech. Panhellenic Council, the governing body of all 13 social sororities on campus, began monitoring the profiles of sorority women. These new features made it incredibly easy for Panhellenic to weave through Facebook and access information that was previously not available to them. Some chapters received strict punishments for having sisters whose profiles contained what Panhellenic deemed ‘unacceptable behavior’. Unacceptable behavior usually included pictures or comments regarding alcohol, drugs, or sexual suggestiveness. Sorority women felt as if Panhellenic was using Facebook as a way to overextend their power and keep a watchful eye on them at all times. Panhellenic retorted by claiming that sorority women need to be monitored because we are held to a higher standard that non-Greek students. They believed that some sorority women had different ideals and values than others; therefore, it was their job to set the standard and enforce it equally among all thirteen chapters.

Allowing virtually anybody with computer access to become a member of the Facebook network was not enough for Zuckerberg. By the summer of 2007, more than 15% of Canada’s population had subscribed to Facebook, with that number continually growing. It would be no surprise to see Facebook become translated into several universal languages within the next few years in order for the growth to continue. While the near future of Facebook is fairly predictable, what’s in store for Facebook in the long-run?

In 25-years Facebook will still be alive and active, with its main purposes still being expression and communication. I think that multiple generations will be regularly using a networking website, if not Facebook itself, to do common tasks throughout their day. I do not think that Facebook’s layout will resemble its current layout at all. Existing programs that have game-like structures will be obsolete. Instead, Facebook will probably have special programs to connect your mobile phone to its website, send and view videos, have instant access to someone’s profile, and live chats. And all of this will probably start appearing within a few years! It will only continue to expand as the years go on, and eventually it could become a worldwide database. The bigger Facebook grows - the more power it will acquire.


Works Cited

Locke, Laura. "The Future of Facebook." Time Magazine 17 July 2007. 4 November 2008 <http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1644040,00.html>.