Facebook is changing our society. A lot.
The average person spends 8 hours per month on the social network, and most of that time is spent liking what other people have done, rather than contributing something useful. Ok, time to climb off my high horse.
Because of Facebook’s impact, I asked this question: if you could wrap up all the time spent on Facebook in a month, how many entire lifetimes do we invest? That is just as dramatic as it sounds. How many lifetimes…the jobs they didn’t work, the clubs they weren’t in, the schools they didn’t go to, the research they didn’t do, the joy and sadness they didn’t experience…How much of that have we traded for Facebook?
I think the answer will surprise you.
By the way, $91 billion dollars is roughly twice the current market capitalization of Facebook (a loose term for “value”). From that, we can fairly estimate that what we get from Facebook is roughly half the return we would’ve gotten from not having Facebook.
Obviously Facebook has done a lot of good things for the United States. It’s easier than ever to stay connected with friends and I’m not sure how people did events before Zuckerberg. But the social cost is not small.
What do you think? Is Facebook worth the trade?
