It was around 10pm last night, when I noticed it. Hubby and I had been sitting on the coach watching a documentary on the televison with Louis Theroux about Crystal Meth. As soon as the credit rolled onto the screen Hubby had picked up his smartphone and I was opening up the laptop.

I slowly closed the laptop again and put it onto the floor, whilst watching Hubbster scroll through his Facebook newsfeed. Finding something humorous he gave a snort, and before I knew it I had the computer back on my lap, and was scrolling through my newsfeed.

“You lasted less than 60 seconds,” Hubbster remarked.

And it was true. Not unlike the meth addicts I had watched on my screen moments before, I needed that hit (although thankfully my drug of choice is social media).

Ten Years of Facebook – Where it all began

Ten years ago today, in a dorm room at Harvard University a 20 year old Mark Zuckerberg launched a website called ‘Thefacebook’ as a means for students to connect. After opening up to the public at large in 2006, Facebook now boasts over 1.1 billion users (which equates to almost a seventh of the total world population!) Impressive, huh?

It appears that early on, Yahoo! had Facebook pegged as a worthy rival, and made the 22 year old Zuckerberg an offer of $1billion for his website that was then just 2 years old. Despite the fact that it was a loss-making company at the time, Zuckerberg surprised everybody by turning it down. Of course, in light of the fact that Facebook is now worth around $135 billion, and is 2nd only to Google in terms of largest website, Zuckerburg made the right call.

Facebook: Love it or Loathe it?

I can’t even begin to tell you how many of my friends have declared their lost love/abhorrence for Facebook, said their convoluted farewells, only to have reactivated their accounts before the week is through. How else are we going to share our selfies?

So what is there to dislike about Facebook?

A recent Internet Project survey conducted by the New Pew Research Centre in August-September 2013 found that the two most popular dislikes about Facebook were people sharing too much information about themselves , and other people posting pictures of them without permission.

27% of people cited other people seeing comments/posts that they didn’t want them to see as he most dislikeable aspect of their Facebook experience, with just 5% saying that seeing posts about social activities they hadn’t been included in, was the aspect they disliked.

The Future of Facebook

Whilst countless theories exist about the upcoming demise of Facebook (based no doubt on the fate of the once-popular MySpace) 64% of Facebook users visit daily….(or several times daily if you are anything like me!) and it is without doubt the most dominant social media platform.

I’m not going to lie. I can’t see me weaning myself off it anytime soon!

Tell me…

A) How often to you check your Facebook?
B) What do you love and loathe most about it?
C) Could you give it up?