Today the situation is curious. We live in the most technologically advanced digital era in history. Artificial intelligence writes articles, generates images and can hold long conversations with us. Yet many people feel that these tools do not occupy the same emotional space in their lives that those early social platforms once did. To understand why, it helps to look carefully at how the social web evolved and what quietly changed along the way.

When Facebook launched in 2004 its purpose was extremely narrow. It was built to connect college students who already knew each other. Access required a university email address. There were no influencers, no viral video feeds, and no global audiences. People logged in to see photos from the weekend party, comment on a friend’s post, or check where classmates were studying abroad. The structure of the platform reflected this intention. The core of the experience was simply your list of friends.

That detail, which might seem trivial today, changed everything. Research from the Pew Research Center showed that the vast majority of Facebook connections were people users already knew in real life. On average only about 7 percent of connections were with people the user had never met offline. Most contacts came from school, family, work or existing social circles. https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2011/06/16/social-networking-sites-and-our-lives-2/

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