ALTHOUGH I DO NOT HAVE scientific data to support my conclusion, I believe my college students spend more time on Facebook than on Google. I'm working with purely anecdotal data when glancing at screens in wifi hotspots and while watching what students are doing in classroom settings. Looking at screen after screen of Facebook newsfeeds and Facebook groups makes me realise that I'm seeing a cross-over moment in the history of computing. By their patterns of behaviour, students are doing things differently than college students just two years ago. This is as big of a platform shift from a candybar phone to a touchscreen phone. It's as big as the moment in 2004 when Google's stock market value topped Yahoo and marked the demise of the portal.
To really resonate change, Facebook has to do more than accumulate more minutes of visits. It has to vanquish Google. Facebook has built itself in Google's image--many top Facebookers are ex-Googlers. Walking through Facebook headquarters feels like strolling through a younger Google office plan.
I'm really interested in how the numbers between Facebook and Google will play out in five years' time. Within five years, the students I see spending hours on Facebook will be employed and some will have jobs where Facebook is blocked. It's going to be interesting to see how the requests to unblock Facebook will work out in 2015. I suspect the arguments will be the same as I heard when people requested to be able to use online banking from their desks a few years ago. Today, few companies restrict that privilege. And if open access to Facebook is an employee right, we'll see a steeper curve than the one in the graphic (above left).
Previously: "Facebook in Ireland", 17 January 2008 and "Crossing Generations in Facebook", July 2, 2009.
