Cue the groans and wailing.
Jokes aside, this new development features one particularly noteworthy element: Timeline.
Timeline essentially replaces the old standby, the Wall, to make it more crisp, chronological and inclusive. Instead of separating and categorizing changes and prioritizing “Wall posts”, all elements are laid out as they chronologically occur along a thin grey line that stretches down the center of the page - the “Timeline”, if you will.
Facebook developers had first access to it, but regular users were able to get Timeline by exploiting the Facebook Developer app, normally used to create legitimate applications for the platform. By mindlessly clicking through a couple pages, you can become a “developer” as well (even if your app literally does nothing).
That’s what I did, although I’m not sure why - only others with Timeline can see the changes on your profile.
Regardless, it’s a big, bold move by Zuckerberg and Co. Overall? I like it - it’s more visual, more intuitive, and comes off looking more like a cool blog than just a Facebook page.
One specific feature of this change, though, stuck out to me. It’s a series of links on the side of the page, near the top - a sequence of years, starting from when your profile was “born”.
Basically, you can see everything that you’ve done on Facebook since you first began tentatively posting, way back when.
It makes sense, because Mark Zuckerberg declared in a live keynote speech (doing his best Steve Jobs impersonation) that Timeline would show “the story of your life.”
That sounds good and all, but here’s the kicker: is this something we really need?
Here’s the thing: the story of my life, documented online? It’s checkered. There are ridiculous, sophomoric (literal and figurative) moments involved. There are my awkward and “subtle” attempts to woo over select females. And, of course, there are my ex-girlfriends.
Clicking through the so-called story of my life, I found myself reliving, re-investigating these moments of the past.
I’m not sure I liked it.
Maybe it’s just a “look to the future” mentality I have, but the ability to see my life history isn’t necessarily something I want.
More importantly, I’m not sure I want OTHERS to have the ability to see my life history.
Facebook stalking, as it’s referred to, feels like it's already at an all-time high. Creeping on peoples’ Walls, looking through their pictures, examining - and then over-examining - every detail, assumption, inference: it’s a phenomenon, and one that’s extremely difficult to resist in this age of inter-connectivity.
Psychology blogger Seth Meyers points out this destructive cycle, referring to it as "unhealthy":
The worst of the Facebook OCD I see (and keep in mind that I use the term "OCD" here to compare it to a well known psychological disorder, not to suggest that this is a mental-health disorder on the same level as professionally diagnosed OCD) happens when men and women in romantic relationships end those relationships.
People look into their targets' Facebook accounts once they've been cut out of their target's friendship circle, trying to glean more information about what he or she is doing now. This behavior, the Facebook obsessor realizes at some point, becomes a problem. Checking Facebook to see what an ex is doing becomes a drug. People start swearing off Facebook, determined to close their accounts and somehow make it impossible to check their obsessee's page again.
But again, it goes both ways. Could being able to relive the past - via Facebook, but still - become a crutch for those feeling down, feeling lonely, feeling lost in the present?
It seems possible. And Amy Muise, from the Cyber-Psychology Department at the University of Guelph (Ontario), even noted in a study that couples who both used Facebook tended to hold more jealous emotions. Clearly, there is a potential for Facebook to harbor negativity in an insidious way.
Add in a dose of everything you've ever done on Facebook, available at your fingertips? Hm.
Facebook's own form of lifelogging is a little different, of course - it hardly features anything as useful as your own car surprising you with new things to do.
And isn't Facebook more about the present, about interaction, about networking and the immediate flow of information from person to person? Social media in general live and die by progression, and it's a curious decision for Zuckerberg to push Facebook now as a way to memorialize your life instead of push it ahead.
In any case, Timeline proves to be an intriguing - and possibly emotionally confusing - addition to the world of social media. What people tend to forget, it seems, is that Facebook can be the perfect hub of all of our joy - but all of our faults and failures as well.
Which will we end up perusing late at night?
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