Why Facebook Is Positive For Society

Life itself is built upon relationships. This is the highlight of one of Facebook’s many varied features in which you may detail how you know your contacts. Examples in which you may have met your acquaintance could be through high school, college, an organization, or even randomly. This makes it easy for people to remember why there are relationships between them and their contacts and allows for great memories down the road.

Facebook’s dynamic usage in assisting society with current events is no more prevalent than in the recent tragedies that occurred at Virginia Tech on April 16 th, 2007. Proving itself as also a media platform, news quickly spread throughout networks on Facebook that a shooter was on campus. Students flooded to the web site to check in on fellow classmates, friends, and families that were associated with the campus. Groups immediately were created, such as the group “I’m Okay at VT ”, in which members posted messages stating that they were safe and encouraging other VT students to update their profile status to show that they were okay (Pelofsky, 2007 ). Not only was this a way for students to express their thoughts and concerns but it also opened a new pathway in which Facebook could lend its hand to society – online memorials. Beforehand, Facebook’s policy was to delete profiles after 30 days of inactivity. Due to pressure from the families of the VT victims (and even pressure from Amy Fought, the mother of the late Radford University student, Blake Fought) to keep these profiles online (. Now, profiles may be moved to a memorializing status, which blocks contact information but allows friends to see photos and education details that pertain to their late friends (Hortobagyi, 2007).

The social communication platform has also proved influential in political debates. Steve Colbert, well-known for his hosting duties on The Colbert Report and appearances on The Dailey Show , declared intentions to run for President. Shortly after the show went off air groups showed up on Facebook in support of the effort. Support groups for actual candidates had already been on created on Facebook months before. For example, the “1 Million Strong” for Barack Obama had grossed over 380,000 members in 7 months. Surprisingly enough, the pop culture star Steve Colbert’s group ranked in an astounding 750,000 members in less than a week (Stelter, 2007). The current count on the group’s Facebook page is 1.4 million members as of 2:12 PM (EST) on 11/4/2007. This phenomenal coming together of people is a vivid example of the power of Facebook’s platform. In under a week, a large number of individuals with the same viewpoint were able to come together to voice their opinion and show their support, even if the candidates efforts may be satirical. It has also encouraged voting among Americans, as more than 6 thousand people have registered to vote through the group and rockthevote.com ( http://radford.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7406420086).