-By Warner Todd Huston
On October 4, Facebook announced the milestone of reaching one billion users worldwide, a major example of how social media has changed the way humanity interacts in an increasingly tech heavy world.
In an interview on NBC’s Today show, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed his amazement on the achievement. It’s “just unbelievable,” said Zuckerberg.
Facebook and other social media outlets have changed the way we interact, indeed.
With the watch word of “be careful what you say,” all too often what appears on the Internet is hard to erase and relationships and family interaction is frequently marred by hasty social media posts.
Perhaps even a new form of discrimination is in the offing. Employers are increasingly turning to Facebook, Twitter and the Internet generally to screen out prospective employees before ever even meeting them. Some employers have even taken to requiring prospective employees to hand over passwords to social media accounts so that a review of what the interviewee has posted can be undertaken.
In any case, as social media grows and new tools are made for its use, more changes are on the way. For now, Facebook’s one billion users makes quite a social network.
____________
“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
For a full bio, please CLICK HERE.