Weblog 10: Facebook as a Superorganism

A superorganism is not a single organism as the name may imply but it is really a group of many organisms working together. All of the organisms are intelligent and are capable of completing tasks. However, sometimes a task is too big or too challenging for the individual to complete on its own. The task can only be when a group comes together. Now the amazing thing is that each individual may not even realize what they are doing, and everyone does not need to be present to accomplish the goal. A superorganism does not have a leader or strong communication between the parties involved, but the task is still accomplished. Examples a superorganism or swarm  in nature are ants and bee hives, but people use this technique to. Many times this occurs without people even realizing it.

                Facebook is one of the most popular and well-known websites on the internet. People use it to share all kinds of information and to communicate. The users of Facebook are an example of a superorganism. There are two main reasons for this. The first is the use of Facebook is basically a fad; a few years ago no one even knew what it was. As it grew more popular, more and more people started using it. To an individual, Facebook does not seem as large as it truly is. They may only have a specific group of "friends" that they interact with but there are really thousands of similar networks of people. As more people joined, they brought along more friends and the amount of people grew. One person using Facebook for their personal use actually lead to more and more people joining. The second is the rapid spread of information. Each person may post something and then it spreads to many other. Soon more and more people are sending the messages. This huge flow of information is only possible with people all working together. However, if one person did not send something on it would not have an effect on the over message being distributed.