Creepy — this is the word used in a 2006 article from The Daily Iowan to describe now-familiar features added to the 20-year-old college social media platform known as Facebook.
The features mentioned include the News Feed display, as well as a place for members to indicate personal details, such as who their friends are, what bands they like, and their current relationship status.
In the 1990s, the internet was exciting and new. It was a limitless database of information accessible with just a few clicks of a button. It provided ease of use, and with it came new ways to quickly communicate with family and friends.
University of Iowa alum Tory Brecht embraced the new media in 1993, he was part of the first cohort of students to register for classes online.
When I started college, there was very little online presence at all, Brecht said. I mean, you had to stand in line and physically go to classrooms to sign up for classes.
Brecht said he and his friends mainly communicated using online bulletin board services, where users could upload and download data and post on public message boards. At the time, this technology blew people’s minds, Brecht said.
Though these virtual bulletin boards were much simpler than later social networks, early internet culture began to take shape around them.
You can kind of see, even with that very early internet culture, what was coming down the path. A lot of jokes, little memes, things like that. By the time I graduated, we could do some basic graphic stuff and the technology has advanced, Brecht said.
On Feb. 4, 2004, a group of Harvard University students, spearheaded by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, developed Facebook. At the time, the site acted almost as a yearbook for their Ivy League peers, simply a way for college undergrads to identify and connect.
After its initial launch, thousands of new users joined TheFacebook every day. In 2005, TheFacebook simply became Facebook after the website domain Facebook.com was purchased for $200,000.
Because of the blooming popularity of the young site, two years after its debut, Facebook’s founders allowed any user with a valid college email address to join, including students at the UI.
By the fall of 2006, anyone over the age of 13 could become part of the Facebook community.
As the platform became a social free-for-all, its users, the sum of which surpassed 1 billion in 2012, encompassed a wide spectrum that ranged from older generations attempting to reconnect with old friends and fellow family members to college students attempting to fit in with the status quo.
By the mid-2010s, Facebook’s reputation as a platform for teenagers and college students had faded. In 2023, Millennials and Generation X are the top Facebook users, according to Insider Intelligence.
While Knutson does have her own Facebook account, she primarily uses it to follow her older family members. She also feels that a decent number of Iowa students have Facebook accounts to follow groups associated with their class, which are used to buy and sell tickets, search for roommates or apartments, and inform others on UI-related issues.
Today’s platforms are constantly adapting, changing, and evolving their features. Facebook’s parent company, rebranded as Meta by Zuckerberg in 2021, seeks to connect people.
Instagram, which was first developed in 2010, was purchased by Facebook in 2012 and has also been revitalized under Meta. It appealed to young viewers, mainly in aesthetic appearance, and continues to skew toward younger demographics. The platform is similar to Facebook in the sense that it allows members to share photos and videos but differs in both layout and aesthetic appearance.
It is also common for people to use social media in their jobs and everyday life; many jobs require employees to maintain an online presence across multiple different platforms, Prideaux said.
Social media can foster immediate connections with strangers and often removes barriers for those who may have social anxiety. People can shape their words and curate their outward appearance online.
I always embrace the aspects of technology and I enjoy the social aspect, but I do worry about our faces being on the screens and our brains being constantly engaged, Brecht said. One piece of advice: give yourself a day-long break from your phone and encourage other people to do that, too. Your brain will feel different.
