People around the globe use Facebook groups every month. From private groups with restricted access to public groups without rules, these groups are changing how communities interact.
One example is the Macomb Illinois Community & Sales Group. It started three years ago when Mackenzie Lemay moved to Macomb from Burlington and learned that there was no Facebook community group like there had been in southeast Iowa.
“I wanted there to be a way for everyone to have access to resources,” she said.
She was expecting her third child when she started the group and saw it as a way to get help within the community.
While other Facebook groups in the Macomb area exist to help residents sell unwanted items, access housing, or find employment, this group exists for the community to come together and offer help to neighbors.
“There was a mom struggling for food and rent money and the community helped her,” Lemay said.
The group also demonstrated its purpose during the cold weather at the beginning of 2024, when community members offered snow clearing services, helped dig out cars from driveways, and hauled cars out of ditches.
Josh Averbeck, a Professor of Communication at Western Illinois University and director of the school’s Social Media Lab, said groups like these are expanding communities.
He said before social media, communities often formed based on who lived on the same street and who someone happened to know.
Now, because of social media, communities are expanding.
But he cautioned they can also create a division between who is online and who is not.
“When it becomes relied upon as the only way to get information out, I think it definitely creates a divide,” he said.
Averbeck said that in addition to online groups, residents should continue to use traditional routes to share community events and resources.
He said that can help to bridge the online divide.
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