Media Theory: Social networks

were facebook and other social networking sites created as a response to  society's needs or as a changer of the society's current social norms?

A lot of people might argue that social networks were created as a reaction to social changes and a response to people's needs. But can people really need something they didn’t even know exist? Nearly half a century ago, Raymond Williams said that a new technology "'emerges' from technical study and experiment. It then changes the society or the sector it has 'emerged'. 'We' adapt to it, because it is the new modern way." The Canadian communication theorist Marshal McLuhan also agreed that the media technologies are the tools used to 'shape' modern societies.  Thus all kinds of social networks were created as part of the process of evolution and consequently became a social norm. 

Few years back, the idea of sharing private information on the web was completely foreign to most people. Then the rising popularity of some social networks reflected the changing attitude of people towards sharing and communicating. "People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people." said Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of facebook; the world's largest social network

The Truth about Facebook