Happy birthday, Facebook!

It’s hard to believe it’s been ten years since the world’s most popular social network was launched – although for many of us, our first contact with the blue-and-white procrastination engine would probably have been around 2006, when it opened its gates to the public and started spreading like influenza.

Previously, Facebook was only open to high schoolers and college kids, with most users based in the USA; before that, access was limited to a handful of Ivy League universities – and in its earliest days, as thefacebook.com, it served as a social network for students at Harvard only.

Today, Facebook has become one of the driving forces of the internet, and by extension – for better or worse – it plays a huge part in our daily lives and interactions too. From the social minefield of relationship statuses, to potential employers discovering what you get up to on weekends, to the joy of rediscovering friends and relatives we haven’t spoken to in decades: Facebook is as complicated and tumultuous as our own relationships.

However, it was when the first Facebook mobile apps were released that Facebook really came into its own, combining the features of a social network, calendar, instant messenging service and on-the-go news aggregator that have made it everyone’s favourite social hub. And in 2010, the site was propelled even further into the public consciousness when David Fincher directed the critically-acclaimed film The Social Network: the compelling story of Mark Zuckerberg’s rise to power, and Facebook’s inexorable journey from a Harvard dorm room to a global phenomenon.

To celebrate ten years of poking, liking, friending and unfriending and friending again, Mobiles.co.uk has put together this series of graphics illustrating the highs and lows of Facebook over the years – and some tantalising glimpses of what Zuckerberg and Co have planned for the future.