We commonly view social networks as transient. They’re temporary in the overall scope of our lives. The recent history of the Web is littered with a multitude of sites that have failed and vanished. Friendster and Myspace, among many others, have all met a similar fate. Facebook is the latest heavyweight, though popular media consistently forecasts a cacophonous doom. News websites ask, “Is this the next Facebook killer?”. Google+, Diaspora and Unthink are all new entrants to the social network race – a race that might be run multiple times.

Instead of asking when Facebook will be dethroned as king social network, we need to start asking, as a society, what will happen if it persists indefinitely? It’s possible that Facebook is the pinnacle social network of our time, fulfilling all of the requirements that we, as humans, have deemed necessary for online social interaction. Maybe it’s all that we need. Imagine that twenty years from now Facebook is still alive and kicking. How will it’s presence in our lives change or affect the relationships that we form? More importantly, how will it change the impression that children born today will have of their parents in the future? As a product of the millennial generation, many of my close friends are forming families. We all know our parents through photographs, distant and faded. However, our children will know us through our thoughts and feelings, as we broadcast them into public view and into the time-capsule of Facebook. Read more…