What is Facebook?

Facebook is a website which allows users, who sign-up for free profiles, to connect with friends, work colleagues or people they don’t know, online. It allows users to share pictures, music, videos, and articles, as well as their own thoughts and opinions with however many people they like.

Facebook History

Mark Zuckerberg built a website called “Facemash” in 2003 while attending Harvard University. The site was comparable to Hot or Not and used “photos compiled from the online face books of nine Houses, placing two next to each other at a time and asking users to choose the “hotter” person”.^[15] Facemash attracted 450 visitors and 22,000 photo-views in its first four hours.^[16] The site was sent to several campus group listservs, but was shut down a few days later by Harvard administration. Zuckerberg faced expulsion and was charged with breaching security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy. Ultimately, the charges were dropped.Zuckerberg expanded on this project that semester by creating a social study tool. He uploaded art images, each accompanied by a comments section, to a website he shared with his classmates and it burst into the scene. people bought the idea and it created a community people never witnessed before

Facebook

Facebook began in February of 2004 as a school-based social network at Harvard University. It was created by Mark Zuckerberg along with Edward Saverin, both students at the college. It wasn’t until 2006 that Facebook opened to anyone 13 years or older and took off, rapidly overtaking MySpace as the most popular social network in the world.

Facebook’s success can be attributed to its ability to appeal to both people and businesses and its ability to interact with sites around the web by providing a single login that works across multiple sites.

Rise of Facebook

Youth who have grown up with technology, Facebook was once the most popular website there is. However, many teens are migrating to other social networking sites such as Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) and Snapchat.

Those who still use it, use it for social networking. Young people are natural born multi-taskers, so using Facebook, as with any social networking website, is almost second nature to many teens. Social networking websites allow young people to experiment with who they are. They are popular because teens can find their own, uninhibited voice online which they can share with friends. Some teens feel they can express themselves easier online when compared to the real world because perhaps they feel the virtual world is more secure.

Privacy

• Privacy: Teens can sometimes forget that what is posted on Facebook is essentially a form of publishing and, unless profiles are set to private, anyone can view the information. Often, teens post too much personal information online like photos or phone numbers
• Predators: While rare, there have been instances where predators and other unscrupulous individuals have targeted young people on Facebook. Due to its nature, the site can be easily accessed and is full of personal information
• Cyberbullying: Facebook provides bullies with a new and fertile battlefield where they can inflict maximum damage on their target through repeated use of nasty messages and other means. There are numerous stories of hijacked profiles or serious instances of cyberbullying which have lead to suffering for victims
• Meeting Contacts: Many parents fear that young people will meet face-to-face with people they first met online. With this there are obvious risks. Some young people will take online contacts at face value, but unfortunately, not everybody is genuine
• Content: Sometimes, there can be content on Facebook which is unsuitable for young people and will upset them. Because of Facebook’s popularity, there are a lot of older users and often children can be exposed to things parents would prefer they were not.