Social Media has undeniably become a huge part of the internet as we know it. Here is a brief overview of the rise of social media.
- 1971: The first email is sent
- 1985: America Online(AOL) starts
- 1994: Geocities. It allowed people to make personal websites modeled after geographic locations
- 1997: AOL Instant Messenger
- 1998: Google
- 1999: In Great Britain Friends Reunited starts. It allowed people to connect with old school acquaintances and was the first social media to achieve fame
- 2002: Friendster launches in the U.S. It grew to 3 million in 3 months
- 2003: MySpace is launched
- 2004: Facebook is launched for college students, primarily Harvard
- 2005: Facebook launches a version for high school students
- 2006: Twitter launches. Facebook will later try, unsuccessfully, to buy Twitter
- 2006: Anyone over the age of 13 can now join Facebook
- 2008: Facebook passes MySpace in total monthly unique visitors
- 2010: Facebook has over 400 million users. Myspace drops to 57 million, down from a high of 75 million.
- 2012: Facebook reaches a billion users
It is interesting to me how quickly social media has risen to prominence. In only 11 years it has grown to include over a billion users and completely transformed the ways in which we can communicate.
I thought the chart below was a really interesting representation of how rapidly social media has risen. It didn’t even take Twitter a full year to have 50 million users while it took TV full 13 years. Whatever your feelings on social media you cannot deny its power and presence in our society.
Timeline info from: http://www.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/NewMedia/SocialMedia/SocialMediaHistory.html
Chart from: http://www.ehulool.com/the-rapid-rise-of-social-media-infographic/
Hey Look! It's Emily 
It is so crazy to think back to the days when we didnt have all of this technology surrounding us. Life was a little bit simpler it feels like, we weren’t constantly hammered with news and updates, we had time to just relax and be apart from the outside world. I cant imagine life now without my cell phone or facebook though because they have become such a huge part of the way our society functions on a daily basis. And technology happened quick to it seems that over the past decade we have been bombarded with new advances and ways to connect with others. And even though these advancments are appreciated and help develop so many things i do miss those days when you were forced to communicate vocally with someone else, face to face!
I definitely agree with you Molly. I love my technology and the tools it allows me to have all the time. But I also miss the “simpler” days of having to call a friend when you wanted to hang out. And having to talk to them to get the latest news. I think sometimes we assume that being friends with someone on FB and reading their posts counts as being up to date on their life, but really it’s not the same. Maybe it really roots out who our real friends are because they are the people that you talk to online but still relish face to face conversation.