Ever since the dawn of mankind, we have been searching for a means to connect with our past. And then there was Facebook. This online social network that has been around for only about 3 and half years now has had a distinct impact on our society and how it is that we connect with the people around us. With the millions of people who use it all across the world, it has almost become a regular part of everyday speech. Though Facebook has become a tool used for social interaction and had some pretty humble beginnings, it has extended itself beyond photos, groups, and a myriad of applications into a worldwide detection tool that are bringing people together over vast distances and time.

To begin to illustrate this quality that Facebook has, even more so than MySpace, or any other online social networking system in my opinion, is a story that I found published in CNN a couple days ago. It tells the story of a mother who had given her son up for adoption and 20 years later went on the search to try and find him. Although she had used other services of tracking him down initially, they all lead her to a dead end. A friend of hers suggested that she use Facebook to try and track him down. You can read the full story here. Long story short, she sent him a message saying that she was his mother and they ended up meeting up and everyone lived happily ever after. Sounds pretty hokey until something like this really happens to you, and if it hasn't happened yet, it will.

Here is my own experience with the powers of Facebook helping me to get reconnected with my past. Close to 9 years ago, I immigrated from Johannesburg, South Africa, all the way to Chicago, Illinois. I was 12 years old and was born and raised in South Africa until that point. I hadn't even left the country, let alone completely transplant myself elsewhere. Being quite young, and the internet quite primitive in the late 90's (not everyone had an e-mail address, and internet connections weren't readily available -- you still had to dial up), it was hard to keep in touch over such a large distance, about 8,500 miles, and a time change of about 8 hours.

So, for the past 9 years, its been as though those first 12 years of my life never really happened. I didn't really speak to anyone in the country anymore, and there certainly weren't any traces of my friends from there anymore.

Fast Forward to the Present
Within the past 6 months, Facebook has gone so international, that it has even hit and consumed a tiny country on the tip of Africa. All of a sudden, I started to notice that South Africans were entering the Facebook mix, and like a talented detective took to the Facebook Search Bar and started inputting long lost names that seemed, oh, lets call them foreign. All of a sudden, I started to connect with one friend, and then another, and then another. I can't even explain to you how incredible it is to see how much has occurred over a 9 year period being away from my friends. You can see their pictures which tell a story that words could never describe, and you get a sense of the person that they are...all based on their Facebook profile (whether this is a good or bad thing is a much different College Answer). There has even been a group on Facebook that has been made which brings further light to this subject.

While Facebook may be the king of procrastination, a little sketchy now and then, or even straight up annoying, there is something to it that has enthralled the masses. I often think about the pros and cons to Facebook, and how it is changing my life and the world in which I operate, and while the jury is still out on its merits, I can honestly say I am so happy that it has given me a chance to get back to my roots and connect to a history and past that I may have forgotten without it.

This post was originally written by Tyrone Schiff
Michigan · Organizational Studies · 06 Aug 2007