Facebook has 800 million users. More than 2 billion posts are commented on and liked every day. More than 350 million people access Facebook using their phones.
That's a lot of progress from asking a neighbor for access to the party line.
"Social media forces you to communicate in very short blocks," said Jeremy Walden, professor of communication. "Because of that, I think some people are losing the ability to communicate in an in-depth way."
Walden said because of this developing technology, students are unable to easily express complicated ideas.
"There's an overall feeling of a lack of depth," Walden said. "Even if it's a paper, it's like they're talking to a friend. Stream of consciousness writing is a big issue."
Joni Richards, professor of communication, said employers are creating requirements to account for the shift in the way young people interact with the world.
"A lot of the employers now are asking for you to be able to present yourself," Richards said. "Making a poster and speaking for yourself is very important."
Employers and universities are putting an emphasis on group interaction, where communication skills used to be a given, Richards said.
"This generation can go and Facebook and talk and talk," she said. "They have 500 or 1,000 friends, but if you were to ask them to speak to those 500 people in the Auburn Arena, do you think they'd be able to do that?"
Walden said his public speaking students struggle with face-to-face interaction.
"I think there's a lack of people in real life that are able to show their emotions, figuring out how to interpret other peoples emotion because they've spent so much time online communicating where there is no sense of emotion," Walden said.
It's not uncommon to see students texting or using Facebook, Walden said.
"As a professor, I can sit there and rail on it all day long," Walden said. "What bothers me is when other students are up talking. I've seen that trend change. They're so tied to it that they can't go an hour without checking it."
In a poll of 65 people around campus and downtown, 47 said they would rather watch a movie than read a book for two hours. Forty-two said they would rather skim Facebook than spend 30 minutes reading a newspaper.
Everyone said they check Facebook at least once a day, and 53 said Facebook is one of the first websites they open when they get on a computer.
People check Facebook so often because they've got to figure out what their friends are doing, and they've got to figure out what the trend is, Richards said.
Richards said the upcoming generation needs to be prepared for life outside of the Internet.
"We just need more group work classes. Employers nowadays, a lot of them are moving to team building. You need to be able to work with people."
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