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Happy ‘Friends Day': Facebook Turns 12

While the company is encouraging Facebook users to share their Friends Day video with the hashtag #friendsday, another hashtag has gained popularity: #beforefacebooki.

It's been 12 years since Facebook launched its social media website and to celebrate the milestone the technology company has dubbed their anniversary "Friends Day."

The company wrote in a blog post that its research showed that every person on the site is connected to every other person by an average of three and a half other people.

Facebook's "degrees of separation" have shrunk as more people have signed on over the years.

To celebrate its anniversary, Facebook has created a Friends Day Video feature which gives the millions of Facebook users a personalized film at the top of their newsfeed. The video depicts a slideshow of Facebook photos unique to each user's account that shows him or her with friends and loved ones, all while set to a playful tune. 

While the company is encouraging Facebook users to share their Friends Day video with the hashtag #friendsday, another hashtag has gained popularity: #beforefacebooki.

Facebook users, as well as those on Twitter and Instagram, have taken to the web to reflect on what their life was like before Facebook existed, giving insight into the way the tech company has changed what it means to be connected. 

 
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#BeforeFacebookI imagine it would have been weird if you'd come home and I was looking through all your photo albums.

Posted by Justin Henderson on Thursday, February 4, 2016
 
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Happy 12th Birthday Facebook. 󾔗 #beforefacebooki knew who my friends were but not what they were eating. #beforefacebooki thought something going viral was a bad thing.

Posted by Sarah Parker on Thursday, February 4, 2016
 
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#beforefacebooki had lost contact with some very good friends from many years ago, today I stay in contact with all my friends

Posted by Nancy Foster Braswell on Thursday, February 4, 2016
 
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#beforefacebookI Used AIM to have conversations. Did not have a very big network. Never understood the power that the...

Posted by Ryan Wantz on Thursday, February 4, 2016
 
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#BeforeFacebookI don't know how I would have found my 6th grade teacher to tell her thank you.

Posted by Shelly Berkowitz on Thursday, February 4, 2016
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