Think about the amount of detail that people share online. Most of the 800 million Facebook users fill their profile with the aspects that defines them: relationships, hobbies, jobs, locations, music etc. If you are like most addicted users, you keep your digital persona on Facebook updated just as much (if not more) than you check your crackberries for emails. The main reason why Facebook has thrived is that it understands the overwhelming need for the world to share their lives with other people. Many might disagree, but when 2.5x the population size of the United States join together on a website to share pictures, interests, frustrations, thoughts, and all other parts of their lives – it is hard to ignore anymore.

Facebook has recently announced major changes to their site – changes that the majority of its users do not agree with. There has also been a lot of criticism around the lack of privacy Facebook is implementing into their new site. How would you like it if your best friend decided to just hand over all of the information they have about you to anyone who asked?

But Facebook’s CEO has not backed down on his vision to make social openness the norm. And he will continue to build his vision until he reaches is goal: a seamless online experience.

The majority of Generation Y and Millennials now bank online, pays their bills with a click of a button, completes hundreds of credit card transactions without leaving their bed, and barely think about the potential for lost or stolen personal information. You can now even deposit a check to your bank account over your mobile phone. Millennials are the generation of “now” – things need to be simple, quick, and at their fingertips with minimal effort. And that is exactly what the Gen Y leader of Facebook is striving to accomplish.

Did you know that Facebook now drives more traffic than Google? The web has become more social and people want to be connected to information, trends, news, entertainment, classrooms, retail, and most importantly their friends, colleagues, and loved ones. The only way to achieve this intuitive ability is to steer the world into a more public forum. If businesses you are interested in, friends that you follow, and sites that you visit know a little more about you - your user experience online becomes more customized and personal.

Mark Zuckerberg:

People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people," he said. "That social norm is just something that has evolved over time.

When I got started in my dorm room at Harvard, the question a lot of people asked was, 'why would I want to put any information on the internet at all? Why would I want to have a website?’

Then in the last 5 or 6 years, blogging has taken off in a huge way, and just all these different services that have people sharing all this information.

As adults, by and large, we think of the home as a very private space … for young people it's not a private space. They have no control over who comes in and out of their room, or who comes in and out of their house. As a result, the online world feels more private because it feels like it has more control. The Age of Privacy is over."

Here is the Golden Rule of Online Privacy: If you don’t want people to know something… Keep it offline!

The article: “Privacy, schmivacy – Gen Y will keep on sharing” pretty much sums it all up.

"There are too many benefits to living with a certain degree of openness for digital natives to 'grow out of it.' Job opportunities, new personal connections, professional collaboration, learning from others' experiences … are all very powerful benefits to engaging openly with others online, and this is something that Gen Y understands intuitively."

The online privacy issue has just started. In 5-10 years, the more in-depth your interests, habits, and online profile… the more personal and intuitive your experience will be across the web.”

Facebook continues to evolve and will continue to polarize opinions for years to come. But one thing we all have to agree - directly or indirectly, it has changed how we all interact every day.