HUMN341Assignment1-4GrayTyler

          Over the past decade or so social networking has become one of the primary means of communication in all age groups.  Facebook has become one such social networking tool, enabling users to interact and keep in touch with friends or family all over the world.  Millions of users in all countries are accounted for on Facebook, making it an electronic melting pot of sorts.  The most interesting part to me is the vast array of age groups that can be found on the site.  When Myspace began it seemed that the only users were the teen/early 20’s groups.  In the beginning, Facebook seemed the same way, but has now merged to accommodate to all age groups.   My parents and I know of others who even have grandparents that have joined Facebook in order to keep in touch with family and long lost friends from school. 

Now, with a movie coming out on the creation and evolution of Facebook, it further hits home how much of an impact this simple website has had on the world.  Some have such a fanatical desire to always be in-the-know that they spend hours each day keeping up with status updates and friend requests.  Others may use it simply as a way to contact a loved one that lives out of state.  When it comes to the U.S. military, Facebook has offered a convenient avenue for deployed troops to keep family up to date on their status and even post pictures in almost real time of things they are encountering.  Features such as this are invaluable to family members and loved ones in order to keep piece of mind. 

With so many great attributes it’s easy to see why Facebook has become such an iconic piece of popular culture.  Even if it disappears in the next five years there is a pretty good chance it’s a word that most will remember for a long time. 

References

AffiliateX. (2010). The facebook pop culture. Retrieved October 2, 2010, from http://www.affiliatexfiles.com/facebook-pop-culture/

Petracca, M. & Sorapure, M. (2007). Common culture: Reading and writing about       American popular culture. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.