The 15 Most Important Technologies of the Last 15 Years – #2: Social Networking and Facebook

There’s no doubt that the Internet impacted society from the moment it went mainstream. However, I believe that we can separate the history of the Internet into two segments thus far: the time before social networking and the time after. Social networking has had a truly significant impact in the way we humans interact and share information with each other, doing so just as easily with people on the other side of the world as we can with people in our neighborhood. It has given us all a voice and we can now reach the world with our thoughts and ideas. Because of this sudden ability for ideas and information to spread, social networking has touched virtually every aspect of our lives from entertainment to politics and everything in-between, enabling the starting of movements and the rise to fame of otherwise regular people.

While all social networking platforms have certainly contributed to this seismic shift in our society, it is clear that none have had the individual influence that Facebook has had. Facebook brought with it an elementary and welcoming interface to a fledgling social networking scene that desperately needed simplification in the mid 2000’s. While tech-savvy individuals had no trouble with other popular social networking platforms, average people had little interest in the arcane interface of Twitter or the entertainment focused MySpace. It was Facebook that brought social networking to the masses and is now by far the largest and most dominant social networking platform, second only to Google in visits. While other social networks gain popularity here and there, Facebook has remained the one true constant in the social networking world and it is the platform that others measure themselves against. With nearly 2 billion users worldwide, it is no wonder that the social networking sun rises and sets with Facebook.

How has social networking changed your life? Can you imagine living without it today? Comment below and share when you first started using social networking.