It was a happy morning in Palo Alto, the home of tech giants like Apple, HP, and the Google powerhouse. But this morning it was the new kid on the block that was throwing the party. In just a little over six years, Facebook has become the greatest social phenomena since MySpace, a company it is now slowly putting out of business. The party at the headquarters was to celebrate something that only Facebook had done and can do. Facebook was at its billionth user; even amidst the reports it was heading towards the social graveyard.

“Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life,” said Mark Zuckerberg in a recent Washington Post article.

Facebook that we know was founded in 2006, by a group of Harvard students mainly Mark Zuckerberg, current CEO of Facebook, and Eduardo Saverin, ousted COO. The story is legend of the two friends turn business rivals. Although it has swiftly dethroned MySpace, some people believe Facebook is starting to burn out, but they couldn’t be more wrong.

Facebook, in 2012 had a growth rate of 3.5 per cent, slightly better than a rate of 3.36 percent in 2011. In layman’s terms, it added 300 million more faces to its book, which seems to still be bursting at its seams.

But the reason that high schoolers might believe in the demise of Facebook is the fact the average age of a Facebook user shifted a little bit higher this year to 28 years old, up from 24 years of age, 12 months ago. This change could be due to the fact that many older people, such as grandparents and parents, are using the site to connect with long lost classmates or friends.

2012 also marked the year that the site was traded in the stock exchange, but the venture had not proved nearly as great as the site hoped.

But even with that fumble, in the Facebook user channel the site  still is growing at a steady pace.

“ I love facebook, becuase of the great social connections with my friends. I do prefer Facebook, but I use twitter a lot now as well. They are both part of my social world,” siad Jared Muenks, junior.

Facebook had also become a company’s best friend when it comes to exposure. Many musicians also use Facebook, including the king of the web himself Justin Bieber, who has nearly 49 million page subscribers as of November 30th.

But in all the steam that Facebook has picked up, it also has lost some of its fan base. According to CNN, Facebook lost 7 million users in May alone, all in the United States, which shows signs of stalling in its home market. Some Westminster students have even closed their screens to Facebook for the last time.

“I was tired of people sharing everything about them, down to what they had for dinner,” siad Luaren Vanek, junior.

Privacy has also been a major reason for the deactivation of many accounts, but the privacy system still is more protective than the one used by Twitter, with even the Editor and Chief of the New York Times being hacked more than once, causing major problems.

“You feel so violated, and its happening so much more now becuase poeple are becoming pros at it,” siad Travis Ralls, junior.

As of now Facebook will remain ahead of the social networking game for quite some time, but there has been some new opposition the recent years. Twitter, also founded in 2006, has picked up amazing steam in the last two years and now has over 560 million users as of November 30th. The fastest growing social network as of now is none other than the photo-sharing site, Instagram. Instagram, which picked up record shatterimg momentum, had a modest 17 million users at the end of 2011. Now at the end of 2012, the site has amassed over 100 million users and has shared over 4 billion pictures, with a growth rate of 588 percent for the year. Instagram also had more mobile traffic than Twitter in October 2012, and is working its was up to Facebook’s door.

Four years is the time from one election to the next. It seems like a short flash of light before our eyes and a only a snippet of our story of life. But in four years, Facebook has tallied 1.1 billion friends, more than a trillion post of pictures quotes and crazy memories to be cherished. For now, no matter how much time Facebook stays of the radar, it has almost guaranteed that, while maybe not in its current form, it will be around for years and generations.

And as for the up and coming generation of now, Facebook had shaped them, molded them, given them the insight of the world, and it will be part of their lives, even if they think it won’t, because it has made a thumbs up shaped spot in their inner system. Facebook is and of our generation and it will keep adding more and more of our faces to its book.