Facebook vs Twitter

Facebook vs Twitter- Who Will Win?

It is pretty safe to say, Facebook has changed drastically since most college aged kids first created their Facebook accounts. For myself included, the reason I first made an account back in junior high was because all my friends started using it and I didn’t want to feel left out by not joining in on the fun. Seven years later, and Facebook is a completely different ball game. Even just glancing at Facebook’s evolution is nauseating to look at How Facebook Has Changed and Evolved Over The Years | Infographic. Little changes such as the ability to crop or tag a profile picture in 2008, or the addition of the “Like” button in 2009 to the Timeline profile introduced in 2011. If we were to compare the first edition of Facebook to its current page, there would most likely be more disparities than similarities between the two.

Personally, one of my dislikes/biases against Facebook is the judging that comes along with the tool. There has been countless times that I’ve made inaccurate assumptions about people that turned out to be so false based off something I saw on their Facebook page. Yes it is tempting to “creep” on strangers but I would rather make my own judgments about others than have Facebook do it for me. Overall I believe Facebook has facilitated our generation to jump to conclusions based on a small snapshot displayed on an individuals Facebook page. 

As I was reading these articles on Facebook led me to ponder an interesting thought- Where would we be today  if Mark Zuckerberg never created Facebook? Would our culture rely more on face to face interactions instead of communicating over the internet? Yes Facebook has allowed us to reconnect and stay in contact with our network but has the quality of these relationships taken a toll? Instead of picking up the phone to see how an old friend is doing, one can just check out his or her Facebook page to see what he or she has been up to. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing- it can definitely be a time saver in a day and age when every minute counts but do the benefits of social media outweigh the cost of diminishing human interaction?

Personally, Twitter has been a great way to stay up to date with the breaking news. By just reading a tweet of 140 characters you can get the jist of what’s happening without having to read the full article in order to stay connected to the world. Especially during the Olympics I was constantly on Twitter to keep myself updated without actually having to watch the games. Twitter exploded during the Olympics with over 3.5 million tweets during the opening weekend. The article, Welcome to the Twitter Olympics described Twitter as the Olympics’ “cocktail hour “ where both athletes and couch dwellers could connect about the games. I personally follow various news organizations such as the Wall Street Journal and the NY Times, in addition to my friends, celebrities, sports teams, and random people my friends have recommended I follow. One of the most interesting aspects of Twitter I have found is unlike Facebook, which is a two way street and if someone friends you, you automatically become friends while Twitter doesn’t work in a similar fashion. If you request to follow someone on Twitter doesn’t mean they are going to request to follow you back.