Participatory Culture

Everyday no matter what day I follow the trend of checking my face book more often than anything else I do in a day. The social network has very easily become an extension of my life with practically half of my socialising in a day is done through Facebook. A network where news updates, how your friends are feeling, some events they’ve been tagged in, instant messenger is all available. Everyone no matter how far away in the world is an arm’s reach away and you can easily get in contact with them by simply signing in and clicking a few buttons. What first started as social network for Facebook had now become an entity of displaying political interest, fan base, video streaming, and an expansion of the world with the connection millions of users who all share their status, posts and social side. This is a network that is built up and constructed purely on the amount of users and depends on the input of each user to operate at a level of social efficiency. If, for example, I went offline for a given three weeks and didn’t post anything or write back to my friends I would be subtracted from the network and would not be a part in the social realm of Facebook, causing a smaller scheme in the global network. Marshall Mcluhan said in The Playboy Interview. “Because all media, from the phonetic alphabet to the computer, are extensions of man that cause deep and lasting changes in him and transform his environment.” This implies that the Facebook culture that is a few years in the making had transformed millions of users and today’s youth in the picture of it all. Never before have we had access to such an extension of someone’s personal information from addresses, phone numbers, pictures and personal profiles which has led to many privacy loop holes. Despite this being an issue, the connection of one user to another is impeccable, making Facebook the ideal form of communication of the new decade, it is a versatile network that gives many of us all that more privilege but in turn a great deal of responsibility.


Works Cited
Lewis, Richard. "PlayBoy." playboy.com. 10 Nov 2009. PlayBoy Mgazine, Web. 23 Nov 2009. .