A note on the social network

Zuckerberg goes global. Or, to phrase it more plebeian, Zuckerberg goes billionaire.

Synoptically, his mission is to make the world open. As open as to allowing the whole world a glimpse at your own diminutive microcosm, globalized via your facebook profile. On facebook’s account, globalization must be specified to every fourteenth person on this earth. Indeed, facebook has reached a world-wide penetration of 500 million, making it THE social network ( the article the has been left out in the course of this endeavor, thanks to the inspiration of Napster’s Sean Parker, simplifying the facebook to a mere facebook).

Facebook, launched in 2004, started off as a network for Harvardians, reaching out to the elite of academics-to-be. Not as an educational tool, but one that would radically alter social relationships and render the individual transparent to his peers and beyond. Issues of privacy would not only leave employers consider banning it from their employees’ accessible sites due to distractions in the workplace and efficiency issues, but a number of countries, including China, Iran and North Korea, did block it temporally.

Social networks let us connect to family and friends, anytime, anywhere. They are the easy way out not only to have a look at what’s going on in their lives, but also to engage in discourse about anything that may appear to be a common interest. Fortunately, Facebook lets us stalk ex-fiancés as well as potential lovers, just for the sake of satisfying our innate curiosity.

Facebook is a tool for building communities, getting in touch and staying in touch with people around us, anyone around the globe, really. Moreover, facebook is becoming a tool for sharing knowledge, and this is exactly where its academic potential may lay.

The idea of networking is not new to academics. On the contrary: If it wasn’t for networking, the mere idea of a scientific community would be obsolete.

We want it. The stats speak volumes. But do we need it? Up to date, no research exists telling us how much time people spend on facebook or social networks alike. What we do know, however, is that the average user logs on ten times a week. Ten times a week! Still, due to the relative recency of its launch, we do not know much about the demographics of facebook users as well as their usage habits. Apart from the media focusing on privacy breaches, up to date there no further debates exist grounded in scientific understanding about how facebook is (irreversibly) transforming the ways we relate. It may be a tool shrinking the world, bringing us ever closer to the global village McLuhan was envisaging and getting to the core of Rheingold’s very idea of the virtual community. In what ways, then, would you think of a community when its members have surpassed half a billion?

That’s hot. Or not? Facebook it.