The average individual goes on facebook to keep up with his friends and his social circle. Facebook is a tool to connect those who want to be updated on the statuses of his or her friends. Sure, some people see it as an outlet for creativity and knowledge but as Facebook has been evolving over the years subtle changes have been made that make it less about creativity and more about conformity. One big aspect of this has been the inclusion of advertisements and pages. In the past Facebook was known as the “cooler” social network that refused to use advertisements to fund their website. However as millions of people realized the entertainment and connectivity value of Facebook the owners decided to open up advertisements to all. To me this shows conformity in its simplest form. What is more troublesome is the inclusion of “Pages” to FB. Back in the day people joined groups because they were simple and relatively fun to join. Nowadays advertisers and Facebook itself want to hone in onto what you the consumer are interested in so they removed most groups and made the popular ones into pages. This way Facebook could make it easier to sell back to the consumers what they want. All theses things are worrisome however I would like to make the argument that Facebook’s conformity isint necessarily a bad thing.

Facebook to me is simply something to connect you to those why you may not be able to see often. The ability to write on the wall of you friends from elementary school is something that is extremely valuable even if you have to wade through some ads. I don’t think that just because Facebook has gone more mainstream all social networking sites have lost their creativity and jazz. In-fact I feel like because of the streamlining of Facebook other creative social networking sites have arisen. One example of this is Tumblr, which promotes almost unlimited freedom of blogging. Here is my Tumblr: http://toxiceuphoria.tumblr.com/. What I like about it is definitely the ability to do what you want. You can follow and add other member’s profile if you would like it and you can also just write blog entries to yourself. I personally use it as personal space and a forum to get my thoughts together. Sometimes its not all about how many friends you have or those who are following you but sometimes its about reflection and getting your ideas and thoughts onto something solid. That’s what I love about all these recent social media websites. Theres something for everyone: The Talkative Chatterbox, The Social Butterfly, The Internet Beginner. 

I think that those people who complain about the "loss" of the individual and his own creativity are being a bit over dramatic. Sure you lose a bit of that "ego" when you join facebook and suddenly become one in several million but youve got to give something to get something. The whole purpose of social networking is the concept of joining something at is bigger than yourself you gain connectivity and you lose the sense of being important. Overall I think that the changes that many social networking websites have been making are worrisome but in the bigger picture meaningless. Facebook is simply too fun of a technology not to use. If your ego gets because of joining an evolving social networking site write in your diary.