A profile update on Facebook can send some students into a frenzy, while other times they barely notice.
Facebook has recently made a change to the user profiles, and the mobile app that recently changed the look.
Since a shift in 2005, Facebook has been constantly making changes, said Radhika Gajjala a professor in the department of Communications and the department of American Culture Studies.
“It’s a way to try to accommodate various needs that they feel are the needs of the consumer,” she said.
Gajjala said the changes will most likely never stop happening because of uncertainty as to what the ideal social network is.
“People are still trying to find their way around what it means to be a social media network,” she said.
When Facebook updates itself, often times it comes with little or no warning.
The last time the social network updated itself, Gajjala said she found out by just a small pop up on her profile.
Facebook’s old profiles may be considered out of date, but Gajjala said she isn’t sure if it is intentional.
“If you had a walkman it became obsolete and you had to buy a CD player,” she said. “I’m not sure that Facebook is going along any planned obsolescence.”
When Facebook updates itself, sophomore Lindsay Becker said she sometimes finds herself confused.
“It messes up my routine,” she said.
Becker said some of the changes are bad, while others she likes.
“I didn’t understand how it worked,” she said. “Some of the changes are nice, in the end makes it easier.”
John Ellinger, chief information officer at the University, said Facebook frequently updates its system without telling the users for privacy reasons.
“Facebook doesn’t say a lot about what they’re doing or why they’re doing it, because they don’t want to share their system with anybody else or how they do it” he said. “It is proprietary, they protect it.”
Finding out a specific reason as to why Facebook changes so frequently remains a mystery, Ellinger said.
“For this update they changed something in their base or core software that made a significant change for you,” he said.
Ellinger said he would not be surprised if Facebook has a plan to change their website and said the “growing pains” may be a part of this cause.
“I would not be surprised if some of this change is due to the [difficulties] of A.) the total number of people using this service, which continues to grow, and B.) the different countries and different requirements. Even countries with regards to Facebook,” he said.
