Facebook Turns Five: Thoughts on Social Networking

Facebook marked its fifth anniversary on February 5, setting a milestone for social networking as a cultural phenomenon.  Just five years ago Harvard undergraduate Mark Zuckerberg launched the site and service.  Just as Facebook celebrated its fifth anniversary, it passed rival MySpace in registrations.

Together, MySpace and Facebook report over 280,000,000 registered users.  Those services, first popular among high school and college students, are now joined by Twitter, a micro-blogging service.  Together, these represent nothing less than a major social movement.

Social networking differs from other Internet services by creating a virtual community of linked users, whose updates, photographs, and postings allow for communication anytime and anywhere.

Today's student generation, the "Digital Natives," know of no existence before cell phones, the Internet, e-mail, and text messaging.  Social networking perfectly fits their lifestyle and worldview.  They assume 24/7 social contact -- or at least access to this contact just a few clicks away.

 A Generation Immersed in Media

Article written by Albert Mohler at albertmohler.com

A new report indicates that the average child in America now spends 45 hours a week immersed in the media -- a multiple of the hours spent with parents or in the classroom.

Commonsense Media, a group that advocates for better programming in the media, commissioned and released the report.  Researchers looked at 173 studies done on media and its effects on children and adolescents.  The results are sobering.  Taken together, these reports strongly suggest that significant exposure to the media is related, among other concerns, to behaviors such as smoking and early sexual activity, as well as low academic achievement and obesity.