Mark Zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg makes you do something each morning, all because of Facebook! It is a place where people get their main news sources. You reach for your phone and scroll through your social media for a few minutes, then you get up and start your day. Nowadays, most people in the United States own smartphones and have some social media that they often use, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and many more. We heavily depend on social media networks to help us connect with people from around the globe by sharing photos, life statuses, and whatnot.

We have Facebook, a popular social media platform, to cater to all of those needs, and the face behind it all is Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg — Early Life

Before we dive into the other content, let’s learn a little about who Mark Zuckerberg is. He was born on May 14, 1984, in White Plains, New York. Zuckerberg lived a comfortable life growing up because he was raised in a secure and well-educated family. His father was a dentist, and his mother worked as a psychiatrist. In his early years, his interest in computers began to emerge. For instance, according to biography.com, Zuckerberg created an Atari BASIC messaging program.

His father utilized his messaging program in his dental office to make it convenient for both him and his employees to communicate. The family also used Zuckerberg’s messaging program to communicate within the house. But that was not all. Zuckerberg also created computer games with his group of friends. He would build off of their ideas and turn them into games.

His parents thought he had such great talent and interest in computers that they hired a computer tutor, but Zuckerberg was always a step ahead. Unsurprised by his intellectuals, Zuckerberg got accepted into Harvard University, an ivy league institution, in 2002. During his second year, he created a program called Course Match, designed to help students choose their courses. Along the way, Zuckerberg invented other programs, such as Face mash. This led to the creation of Facebook, , when Zuckerberg and his friends wanted to create a site that allowed users to make their profiles, upload photos, connect and communicate with others. Zuckerberg took a risky chance by dropping out of Harvard, one of the most prestigious universities, to develop Facebook even further. As a result, Facebook garnered one million users by the end of 2004.

The Rise Of Facebook

Facebook began to rise to the top of the social media hierarchy. Accel Partners took notice of Facebook and decided to invest $12.7 million. At that time, Facebook was only available to ivy league students, but then they decided to expand outside of that and allowed access to other colleges and schools. By the end of 2005, Facebook had reached more than 5.5 million users, that is 4.5 million users since the launch of Facebook in 2004. Because of Facebook’s success within two years, it drew attention to other companies, such as Yahoo!, that wanted to use the site for advertising themselves, but Zuckerberg declined their offers. To expand the site further, he collaborated with other developers to develop features that would be useful for users.

Find more statistics at Statista.

Fast forward to 2020

According to Statista, Facebook has over 2.4 billion monthly active users. Additionally, here are some impressive facts about Facebook. In 2007, Facebook “surpassed one billion users, which made it the first social media ever to do so”. With over 2.5 billion active users, we can break it down to the audience demographics to better represent who uses this site.

As reported by Social Sprout, 83% of women and 75% of men use Facebook. 88% are between the ages of 18 to 29, 84% are between 30 to 49, 72% are between 50 to 64, and 62% are 65 and older. So how exactly does Facebook make money from us? Since Facebook has over two billion active users, it is an easy source for companies to advertise their products. Additionally, Facebook is a free online service that makes money through advertisements. Based on statistics provided by Social Sprout, a user’s average time spent on Facebook is approximately 35 minutes per day, and within those minutes, you are already exposed to several advertisements. According to slate.com, Facebook earns $4.84 in revenue per user per year.

Impact on Social Media

Facebook has changed the way we connect with people. In this digital age, having a social media account is considered part of your social life. We use Facebook to interact with family and friends or stay in touch with people far from us, we share videos to help raise awareness, or for pure entertainment purposes, we like, comment, and share posts. Not only did Mark Zuckerberg change how we connect with others, but he also changed how we use our mobile devices.

Social Media on Mobile Devices

What is social media without being able to access it directly on your mobile devices? Since we live in a digital age, a mobile device is necessary. It is a portable, mini, hand-held computer. On a daily, we are consumed by our mobile devices. Whether we use it for phone calls, texting, emails, business-related, and whatnot, we are always on our phones.

Since there are apps for Facebook and Messenger, we have them readily available for us to use. The “average consumer spends about five hours per day on their mobile devices” (Social Sprout), and about 19% of that is spent using the Facebook app.

Summary

Mark Zuckerberg has revolutionized the way we connect, share, and communicate with others online. He started as a young boy who was interested in computers and created programs here and there; he later then attended one of the most prestigious universities, to who then decided to take a significant risk by dropping out of college to develop a social media platform that 2 billion users now occupy.

Mark Zuckerberg proves that sometimes taking risks can lead to big things.