The Facebook Archive
Simply put, archives are accumulated collections of historical records and are original records themselves, unlike books or magazines that have been published and/or copied several times. Archives can come in many different forms such as: historical documents, computer files, photographs, diary entries, videos, materials, etc. In his article, “Of Things Said and Unsaid: Power, Archival Silences, and Power in Silence”, Rodney Carter introduces that with the existence of archives, “individuals may visit archives in order to hear stories” from the past. This means that as archives are accessible, they are meant to be looked back on or to refer to for information from passed times, whenever needed.
Instead of looking at the manual storage of archives (ex. traditional archive libraries, one’s drawer, etc.), I want to taste the online archive, specifically on the social network site of Facebook. Apart from its popular use of allowing others to connect with friends, I find what is more astounding is that Facebook can work as a mass archive, allowing mass storage and documenting of everything that happens in a user’s “life” online and offline. “Everything” includes what the user individually posts or what the user’s friends tag-post or share with him/her: photos, comments, wall posts, videos, notes, messages, profile picture changes, status updates, etc. Facebook is very promising and specific in capturing and organizing every activity made by a user. The system’s efficiency and attention to detail can be useful at times, such as when exact date and time of a post are noted, or when how many and who specifically has seen a post so far by a constant update with time.
The specific information given is useful for present/future reference.
We can see Facebook receives inputs and builds a personal archive for the user, not only for convenience, but most importantly for the ability or optioin to look back and refer to later on. Features such as the “Activity Log” and “Timeline” especially allow Facebook the foundational capability to literally organize one’s lifetime.
Timeline
The unique “Timeline” feature allows a user to explore their past on Facebook, keeping everything, since the time he or she has signed up for an account, stored and available for access. With such an ability, one is able to track a specific post made in the second week of March in 2004, and they can point to the exact time of the day when the post was made. Thus, a Facebook account seems to overall work as a large archive, which contains multiple, smaller archives within it, giving access to collections of records from the past.
This online “archival-ry” can be witnessed and accessed freely in other places such as blogs, Youtube videos, or digital images. In the online place, it seems like archives are limitless and not difficult to be accessed and controlled.
A bit of my opinion…
Rachel King and I both seem to have the same thought: “Taking a look down memory lane with Facebook’s new Timeline feature might be full of surprises, both pleasant and unsettling at times.” What she means is that the experience of flipping back can be greatly “nostalgic” or “horrifying”, in ways that make one think “what was I thinking?” The fact that the timeline is accessible to friends as well makes me more nervous, knowing they can see things that I do not wish to be in the “spotlight” today!!
How was everyone else’s experience with the timeline?
I joined Facebook in grade 10, and so the Facebook timeline allows for an interesting online archive of my life from that point, but although interesting it is rather unsettling knowing that a dorky picture of me from grade 10 is easily accessible. I frequently come across posts in my newsfeed that read “(insert name here) liked (insert another name here)’s post from 2008” and sure enough an unfortunate picture of a friend taken in grade eight will be displayed. It is this feature of the Facebook timeline that could be considered undesirable because of the way it makes it so easy to find old pictures. Despite this though I do find the Facebook timeline to be “nostalgic”. Now at UBC, away from home, it is hilarious to be able to easily look back at a collection of pictures from through out high school of friends that are now scattered across Canada and the US. I believe that in this digital age the Facebook timeline proves to be a contemporary archive, indicative of our generation especially.
This digital age certainly allows such archives to exist, enhancing and decorating them to a whole new level compared to traditional photo albums, diaries, papers, and such. Looks like we’re both in a split of two opinions: we are thankful Facebook works to store everything so we can easily access and refer back to them, but at the same time irritated that they certainly have kept their promise to store every little thing! No doubt is it unsettling to find unwanted materials “out there” for easy access. It is relieving that they are not concrete, as we are given the power to control and customize our archives (delete or un-tag oneself). We can also talk about how archives, Facebook especially, can affect real life situations, such as the damaging of one’s reputation, as it has occurred many times in the past. For example, a “dorky picture” might appear inappropriate instead to employers, and therefore limit your chances of scoring the job. Therefore, archives are not only useful or helpful or fun, but can also potentially harm one’s external image when it comes to the real world.
Hi Melissa, I think that your analysis of Facebook as “a personal archive” is very well done. You pointed out that Facebook itself went all out to guarantee “efficiency” in the way users manage their page, in which they continue to, in order to keep with the way users use their Facebook account for social interaction and networking. Personally, I am not a big fan or a excited user of Facebook as a way to store my own personal memories (like to live in the moment, while it’s happening) but I do think that the direction society as a whole is going towards, is eventually digitization (that is at least post-industrial nations) of everything. However, since we’ve been looking at the problem of “silence”, whether it be in the context of “natural” and “unnatural” we should be aware that there are still marginalized groups of people that either (like me, refuse to update by timeline) or are not consistent with their updates due to perhaps lack of internet access at home- unaffordable. That is why it is very interesting to see where “gaps” and “silences” exist in everyday lives.
Moving away from the simple archival performance, you bring up a crucial point that daily silences do exist even in such open and friendly networks such as Facebook. You pointed out that there is a flaw in my opinion that online “archival-ry” is not difficult to access, but indeed is to some when we turn our eyes to marginalization. I like how you distinguished Carter’s “natural” and “unnatural” silences in this specific context. Knowing that Facebook can be used to narrate one’s life, unnatural silences, such as what you said, due to lack of internet access at home, or the un-affordability of a computer can mean that individuals who have a want or political need to be heard from the other side of the world are disadvantaged and cut off from doing so. Natural silences within Facebook are interesting too, I am too not a big fan of Facebook as I find that I don’t like to conform and rely on a mainstream network to express my life. Thank you for giving me another perspective.
As a hardcore Twitterite, I would like to bring Twitter into the conversation, because Twitter > Facebook. Just like with Facebook, Twitter has an archive of all your tweets. While I would only be able to view the 2000 most recently tweets of other users (and vice versa), Twitter gives me the option to download my entire Tweet archive. This includes Tweets that I have deleted (yes I checked). However, the main difference is that the archive is for my eyes only (and the NSA), so my humiliation and embarrassment is thankfully confined in the space of my own mind. I would be interested in knowing what you think of Twitter’s archiving system!