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. However, with the
rise in claims of vast data archiving the value of the medium is effected in
various regards.
The
history of Facebook began in February of 2004 as Mark Zuckerberg and a group of
others created 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 Spread to a global phenomenon. Following this incremental
changes such as the inclusion of individual posts that serve to inform other of
their activities or just information in general began. These among other
changes would continue to manifest until the Facebook we know today emerged.
The platform today is a behemoth with 1.86 billion monthly active users and has
also expanded the available features. No longer just a message board it is now
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 and thus makes us
the actors.
So has this platform with its features been 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. Due to this difference in security and the very nature of the medium
Facebook cannot emulate the diary in terms of security and content and
therefore comparisons of the two are limited.
As discussed the matter of privacy and what one may or
may not post is relevant in its effect on self-writing. Whether this effect is
conscious of unconscious it is still relevant. Rethlefsen states that “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 in which all comments were stacked in one space and
accessed together instead of fragmented posts. 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 actively
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 changes exist. In some cases, this online
“persona” that an individual creates can actually harm themselves. It is
regarded by some as common knowledge but businesses and organizations tend to
look at social media to determine whether or not a candidate is good to hire.
This possibility of losing out on a job is just another example that while Facebook
is a self-writing platform you can’t always believe what you read online.
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
Statista, Number of
Facebook users worldwide 2008-2016 | Statistic, http://www.easybib.com/cite/eval?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.statista.com%2Fstatistics%2F264810%2Fnumber-of-monthly-active-facebook-users-worldwide%2F
/. Accessed February 14, 2017
Hi David- Mrs. Reyes here.
ReplyDeleteI think your paper has some very intriguing points: audience, veracity, privacy, censorship, etc.
The problem may be that you have too many great ideas, and not one seems developed enough. You craft an excellent paragraph about privacy issues, and that was the strength. You also have a nice introductory section that you can certainly rework and use for Paper #2. Very thoughtful writing.