When you think social network the word Facebook immediately springs to mind. When you think Facebook, you think of friends, pictures, and all kinds of social activity. Facebook is playing a role in today's society that's hard to decide if any company should be playing, being the identity data base of the world. With 500 million users Facebook is now -in population- the third largest country in the world.
It's hard to imagine it all started in a Harvard dorm room almost five years ago. Facebook's CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg was then a regular computer science major working his way through his sophomore year of college. Although Zuckerberg since the beginning always had big expectations, it would of been hard for him to imagine what he would end up creating.
Today Facebook is a major social force that's driving the internet, and society, in the same direction it's heading. Zuckerberg's company -once known as The Facebook- has changed everything about how people interact with each other.
The argument can certainly be made that Facebook has affected, both negatively and positively, how humans relate to each other, but it also depends which side of the coin you're looking at. From the business side of relationships Facebook is a great tool which allows you to easily keep in touch with other people. On the personal side of relationships, however, Facebook could end up having a very harmful effect.
Facebook falls under the category of "social network". The name says it all (keyword being network). The secret to success in business and in life, as best selling author of "Never eat alone", and master networker, Keith Ferrazzi claims, is reaching out to others. As ferrazzi emphasizes in his book "there's no such thing as a self-made man". Every success story, in both life and the business world, leaves a trail behind of those who helped you climb up the stair, and vice-versa. Facebook allows you to do just that; to connect with others, wether it's someone you've known for a while or someone you just met, so you can easily create or maintain a network of relationships with endless possibilities.
Facebook has certainly had a positive impact in business relationships. The Social Network, since it achieve it's massive popularity, has been used as a networking tool to create and strengthen business relationships. It's basic functions, the news feed, the wall, and inbox, are all very powerful tools that come in very handy when building a relationship. In his book "never eat alone" keith Ferrazzi talks about a concept he calls "pinging"( by the way, this is a fantastic book if your interested in learning how to build a lifelong community of colleagues, contacts, and mentors). The concept of "pinging", as Ferrazzi calls it, is the concept of constantly keeping in touch with those people in your network, but whith a small difference as you would normally do it. "Pings" are meant to be short and concise messages that have the sole purpose of telling it's recipient that "you care".
You form business relationships because after all the cake and watermelon there's a chance that you will gain something out of them. That's why these kind of relationships don't require the kind of contact that the deep personal ones do, and why Facebook has proven to be a very powerful tool when it comes to networking.
On the other hand, Facebook has been blamed for being one of the main contributors to the massive build-up of "social capital" -which refers to the relationships within a social network- and the quality of the latter. This increase in social capital could end up affecting personal relationships in two different ways. First, the theory that social networks have led to an increase in the quality of relationships and would ultimately end up replacing face-to-face time, is widely held on this topic. On the other side of the coin however, the argument is made that social networks are creating shallow and impersonal relationships, which consequently are building-up a kind of "social clumsiness" when we actually share face-to-face time.
In my opinion both arguments have valid grounds, but it really comes down to what kind of person you are. If you're the shy kind, that's prone to being uncomfortable when it comes to interacting with others (friends, family, acquaintances, etc), then you're probably better off sticking to building "social capital". On the other hand, if you're the social kind that hardly misses an opportunity to interact with others, then relying on social networking to maintain your network healthy could be a big mistake.
When it comes to relationships, the effect that Facebook will have is still unclear. What is clear, however, is that Facebook holds the future of human social activities on a very tight leash. Where it will take, and ultimately do with this vital aspect of human life -as scary a thought as it may seem- remains to be seen.
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