Facebook: Be Connected or Be Followed

The first thing which comes to our mind when we hear social media is – Generation Z. How could we miss out on such an important and sassy topic? (All our topics are amazing, we know that)
It's no surprise that Gen Z likes to use social media. They are the first truly digital generation that grew up with social media, technology, and iPhones. Gen Zers don’t want to go through a lot of effort to keep in touch or get their news. Hence explaining the quick 'Good hair day' snaps and 15 seconds celebrity reels. The quicker we can consume content, the better
It will be very interesting to know- Our 1st social media platform ever with all our cute (and embarrassing) childhood pics- Facebook. We will be talking about the things of Facebook we all must have faced or thought about at one time or the other and also the recent update of its integration.

‘People you may know’ (WHAT? Is Facebook stalking me?)
I met a guy in the market yesterday. He left his belonging at one of the shops and I just called him as he was walking out of the store. He said thank you and next day I saw him on my Facebook page as ‘People you may know’. How creepy is that? One thank you and Facebook is asking me to send him a friend request. Is Mark Zuckerberg actually a magician? I mean how could anyone know this? Does this happen due to location? Or due to Facebook mentions or searches? (So, if I see my crush in my friend’s suggestion can I assume he’s stalking me too?)

                                                   

Let’s know how exactly this works!
A lot of evidence was found out by different agencies suggesting that location is a factor that Facebook uses for suggesting friends. Facebook agreed to this being one of the may factor but when it was criticized as being a privacy issue, Facebook immediately retracted its statement (how could they tolerate bad publicity). The next factor which was studied answered the question if these suggestions are based on people who check your profile. It was accepted that this might be true. If I’m showing interest in someone and searching for them, why wouldn’t Facebook suggest that person? 
Facebook has completely denied usage of third-party apps like tinder for suggesting friends. But then why do some people still find their tinder and bumble matches as suggestions? It seems as if some things indeed work in mystical ways.

“I’m planning to buy a new laptop” Facebook shows – Get the best deals on laptops here. (How is this happening????)
Ads, that I never searched
"How lucky she is, to get so many silk chocolates"- stated me, looking like a 7-year-old craving for chocolates at my friend's birthday party (I wish I could have stolen them all). But wait? Scrolling my Facebook page, I saw many silk ads that I craved for. How? How did Facebook know what I spoke or had in my mind?

Facebook determines what ads to show us is based a lot around the information we provide by our online activity. By using things such as our age, location, page likes, app use, and even data from the mobile websites we browse, Facebook profiles us into categories that advertisers can then use to target
ads to us on Facebook. If the ads we see on Facebook sometimes seem frighteningly specific to us, that’s because Facebook is constantly keeping track of our activity, determined not only by everything
we do on Facebook but also by our offline activity as well.
With a few key partnerships in place, Facebook also uses what we buy in real-life stores to influence and track the ads we see. Through combined data, they have an idea of what we like, where we shop, and what we buy. It sounds a bit crazy, but do not be alarmed. This practice is actually much older than
many people realize.

Integration of Apps
My mom told me the recipe to make cookies a long time ago but where did she send it, maybe insta, or Whats App or Facebook; What if all the messages were integrated, I could have searched about it anywhere!
In a statement, Facebook said it wanted to “build the best messaging experiences we can; and people want messaging to be fast, simple, reliable and private.” It added: “We’re working on making more of our messaging products end-to-end encrypted and considering ways to make it easier to reach friends and family across networks.”

By stitching the apps’ infrastructure together, Mr. Zuckerberg hopes to increase Facebook’s utility and keep users highly engaged inside the company’s ecosystem. That could reduce people’s appetite for rival messaging services, like those offered by Apple and Google. If users can interact more frequently with Facebook’s apps, the company might also be able to increase its advertising business or add new revenue-generating services.
Facebook stands to rival WeChat through the integration. If looking at Facebook’s messaging app competition, there is one application that stands above the rest: WeChat. By integrating all three messaging apps though, Facebook will encroach on WeChat’s ubiquity in China and its 1.08 billion monthly active users.

                                         

However, the integration plan raises privacy questions because of how users’ data may be shared between services. WhatsApp currently requires only a phone number when new users sign up. By contrast, Facebook and Facebook Messenger ask users to provide their true identities. Matching Facebook and Instagram users to their WhatsApp handles could give pause to those who prefer to keep their use of each app separate.
Sounds like this indeed is the time of mergers and collaborations. If I can benefit from someone's expertise why shouldn't I?
What should we expect next? Netflix and Snapchat? Swiggy and Uber?