Facebook: History and culture
Facebook from its inception as a social media platform has evolved beyond that singular purpose and is now a fluid multipurpose platform from which self-writing capabilities have arisen.
The history of Facebook began in February of 2004 and began as a simple messaging platform aimed at friend to friend communication. However, as time passed it began to encompass “more than 800 college networks” and from there began to see incremental changes that would continue to manifest until the Facebook we know today emerged. The platform today is a behemoth and has expanded the available features in turn. No longer just a message board it is a tool for companies to advertise, governments to collect data en masse, and people to express they’re likes and dislikes as well as opinions and themselves. This possibility of personal expression is allowed through a Facebook “page” introduced as early as 2004 and expanding uses continually as far up as 2011 with the introduction of “timelines” which in literary terms provide a clear value. In addition to timelines groups of like minded individuals or with shared interests can join a “group” and use this space to create narratives or even by limiting the audience use that space as a public journal akin to a stage.
So how is this platform with its features used in terms of self-writing and has it had an effect on self-writing culture? Absolutely Facebook is inherently different from a journal or diary in the sense that for a vast majority of users it is used as a platform to network as opposed to keeping a log of information. By this unless an individual takes advantage of the security and privacy features the post is more often than not going to be public. It is safe to say that a closed diary tucked away in the darkness of a room is more secure than a very platform that has “social” in the tagline. So because of this even if one is to keep a, log of their life as some do it is still going to be subject to outward public opinions and the holdings of the super ego.
As discussed the matter of privacy and what one may or may not post is there. “Regular people have also started seriously to weigh the benefits of Facebook against the potentially high cost of loss of privacy.” This quote and the journal it is attached to is telling how far Facebook has come from its roots as a simple “board based” platform. It is because of this information and the understanding that once it’s on the internet its “there forever” lead to an effect on the validity or at least honesty of the content posted on Facebook. This feeling of potentially being watched and recorded changes all forms of self-writing. From stories that may be edited to be less accurate or detailed for fear of potential archiving to the very rhetoric in which the “posts” are constructed the underlying potential of Facebook's policies have an effect on those who are aware of said policies. In conclusion Facebook is a platform which has evolved since its conception in many ways and in a negative way arguably.
Work cited:
Mat Honan, Gizmodo, 2/01/12 5:16pm, UTRGV Library, http://gizmodo.com/5881431/view-facebooks-entire-history-as-a-timeline, Accessed February 1st 2006
Rethlefsen, Melissa L, search.proquest.com, Library Journal; New York, (Jul 01, 2010), http://search.proquest.com.ezhost.utrgv.edu:2048/docview/818699761?pq-origsite=summon, Accessed February 1st 2006
