Social media has become second nature in our society
today. It links billions of people together on a global scale in ways that was
never thought possible. It is hard to believe that this phenomenon is not done
growing and that we are on the verge of experiencing a social communication
breakthrough. In an article written in the American
Historical Review, Rozenzweig quotes the publisher of Wired magazine’s, Louis Rossetto, belief that the breakthroughs in
social media have already, and will continue to, bring about “social changes so
profound their only parallel is probably the discovery of fire.” This
comparison can be viewed as a profound overstatement when you take into account
that prior to 1988, the Times only
referenced the internet one time, in a short aside article, that had very
little significant reference (Rozenzweig). All things must have their
beginning. In order to understand the history of social media as we know it
today, we must first understand how the internet and the World Wide Web began
and transformed life as we know it forever.
During the 1950’s and 1960’s, many of the world’s nations
were at war with each other. It is argued that during this time period the
Internet was created out of the need to have a communications network in place
that would be capable of surviving a nuclear attack. The Rand Corporation, a
think tank used for research and development, was tasked by the United States
government to create this new communication utility. Rand partnered with the
Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) and together attempted to build this
so called communication network. They created “the essence of the internet”
through a multitude of cables, radio, and satellite communications (Ryan). At
first, these communication lines were largely used for military and educational
purposes. But in the late 1950’s, the idea of online networking as a social,
public phenomenon began. Young adults began to engage in an activity known as
phreaking, which is the art of hacking into telecommunications systems for the
purpose of making a free phone call. This group of individuals grew in numbers
and they began communication with one another to share their common interest of
hacking the systems. This led to the public use of the Internet as a means of
communication with each other (Ryan). The Internet was used largely by only
those technologically savvy enough to manipulate it. It would need a
user-friendly face-lift through the adoption of the World Wide Web.
Over one-hundred and thirty years ago, Alexander Graham
Bell received the patent for the telephone. Obviously this had a drastic impact
on how we, as a society, are connected today. It took 74 years before there
were over 50 million subscribers using the telephone to be connected. Radio subsequently
took 38 years to reach the same figures after it went public followed by the
computer; taking 16 years for it to reach the same amount of people. As the technology became more available and
more advanced, the time it took to connect mass amounts of people decreased
exponentially. The World Wide Web, after its inception in 1993, would require a
time of only four years to reach over 50 million users (1 Setting). The World
Wide Web was created by the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN,
by a scientist in 1989. It was originally created to establish lines of
communication for scientists at many different institutions across the globe.
In 1993, CERN donated the technology to the world allowing mass public use
(CERN). This led to the commercialization of the World Wide Web.
Though the concept of the World Wide Web as a navigations
system was adopted from CERN in 1993, private commercialization of the Internet
and World Wide Web was taking place years prior to that. In 1991, the United States
began to allow commercial users to access the Internet. This gave way to the
concept of the modern day Internet Service Provider, or ISP. Users could pay a
fee to a commercial provider and in return were granted access to the Internet.
At first, users of one company could only connect to users who used that same
company. But once CERN released their user-friendly browser, the World Wide
Web, it became possible for users to connect to anyone on the Internet. In
2001, it was estimated that 18% of the total phone calls made within the United
States were for the purpose of establishing connection to the Internet. People
were buying computers not for the purpose of computing, but for the purpose of
connecting to the web (1 Setting). Commercialization began to boom as web
giants Google and Yahoo began to dominate the online market. It was now
possible for mass amounts of people to be connected to one another and transmit
information faster than we could have ever thought possible. Previously, media
was confined to “relatively local viewing or listening” and it became
“user-shared” and accessible “world-wide” (Ryan). The concept of user-shared
information was the focal point of what has become the most socially connected
society in our history. The idea of a user driven web is what gave rise to the
social media behemoths Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. 
According to Dr. Anthony Curtis, Mass Communication
Dept., University of North Carolina at Pembroke, blogging began in 1997 and the
Web had over one million web sites. User of AOL could instantly chat and the
idea of social connectivity began to flourish through online accounts and
profiles. In 2000, over seventy million computers were said to be connected to
the Internet. In 2002, the social networking website, Friendster, was launched
and grew to 3 million members in just three months. A year later, Myspace.com
was launched as a clone of Friendster and quickly rose in popularity. At this
time in 2003, there were over 3 billion Web pages. In 2004, social media
websites were growing in popularity and many new websites, including Facebook,
were established. By 2005, there were over 8 billion web pages and hundreds of
millions of Web users (Curtis). In 2009, Facebook was ranked as the most used
social network worldwide with over 200 million users. Just one year later in
2010, Facebook’s users doubled to 400 million and it was estimated that almost
30 percent of the earth’s population used the internet. By 2011, social media
was accessible from virtually anywhere and had become “an integral part of our
lives” with “over 550 million people on Facebook, over 65 million Tweets sent
through Twitter…, and over 2 billion video views every day on YouTube
(Curtis).” It is estimated that by 2015, in just three years, over 60% of the
Earth’s population, approximately 4 billion people, would use the internet
(Curtis).
Without a doubt, the implications of an entire world
being socially connected are unknown. There is no telling what the
consequences, for better or worse, would be. In a matter of years, the number
of people online has grown exponentially and is continuing to increase at
unprecedented intervals. By examining the history of this social phenomenon, it
is an understatement to say that society was prepared. We will continue to see
changes on a global scale of how we continue to connect to one another and
remaining connected will, undoubtedly, change the aspects of our everyday
lives.
Works
Cited
"1
Setting The Scene--The Internet, The World Wide Web And Cyberspace." Hume
Papers On Public Policy 7.4 (1999): 1. Academic Search Premier. Web.
14 Nov. 2012.
"CERN
- How the web began." CERN - the European Organization for Nuclear
Research. European Organization for Nuclear Research, n.d. Web. 14 Nov.
2012. <http://public.web.cern.ch/public/en/About/WebStory-en.html>.
Curtis,
Anthony . "The Brief History of Social Media." The University of
North Carolina at Pembroke. Mass Communications Department. Web. 14 Nov.
2012. <http://www.uncp.edu/home/acurtis/NewMedia/SocialMedia/SocialMediaHistory.html>.
Rosenzweig,
Roy. "Review Essay: Wizards, Bureaucrats, Warriors, And Hackers: Writing
The History Of The Internet." American Historical Review 103.5
(1998): 1530. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14 Nov. 2012.
Ryan,
J. "A History Of The Internet And The Digital Future." World
Future Review 4.1 (2012): 105-108. Academic Search Premier. Web. 14
Nov. 2012.
