Facebook—a website most of you are familiar with and likely frequent— is an online social media and networking environment. Mark Zuckerberg created the service in 2004 and limited it to only fellow Harvard students. However, because of the popularity of the networking community, Zuckerberg opened it up to all college students that had a working college email address. But the hype continued, and finally Zuckerberg allowed all users, at least thirteen years of age or older, to use the service. Facebook now has over a billion active users.
Users can display as much or little information about themselves as they wish—such as work and education, location (current city and home town), birthday, gender, relationship status, languages, religious and political views, contact information, favorite books, bands and movies, as well as friends and photographs. Users are also provided the ability to post and update their statuses as often or rarely as they wish. Users can “like” and comment on their friends’ statuses and photos. In addition to these Facebook amenities, Facebook also offers a note section where users can express their thoughts creatively, persuasively etc. and share them with select friends or publically to all of their Facebook friends. Facebook users can also join Facebook Cause groups in order to advocate important causes. Lastly, Facebook offers games, such as Farmville, for users—among a plethora of other applications. While Facebook was created for social media purposes as well as leisurely entertainment, the service was originally established in an academic setting. And Facebook has the potential to serve scholastic purposes in all classrooms. Though most students use Facebook to connect and stay in contact with family as well as old and new friends, they are not getting the full use that Facebook has to offer, especially for writing students. |
Digitally Do-ableHow do I . . .
Create a Facebook Account (Video Tutorial) Citing FacebookFor APA citations:
cite Facebook general statement in APA cite a Fan Page, Group Page, and profile information in APA cite in a particular post from Facebook in APA For MLA citations: cite Facebook in MLA? |
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