"Hey, look, here's a bunch of Grandpa's old Facebook posts..."
I’m one of those Facebook users who alternates between
railing against the evils of the medium and deciding to post yet another bon mot that the world can’t do without.
This desire to share my pearls of wisdom notwithstanding, my frustrations with
the site lead me—a number of times a year—to seriously consider quitting it.
The hook that keeps me in the game (as is true of many of my generation) is the
addiction to the perpetual album of photos of our grandkids. (And, I will
confess, Facebook is the only means I can think of to nudge this humble blog on
its way into the wide world.)
In the interest of clarity, I’ll state directly that the
main cause of my frustration is the disingenuous way that the Mark Zuckerbergs
of the world pander to users by introducing the site and its various features
(and ever-changing tweaks) with the assurance that they are only providing what
we all want: We all want our
“Friends” to know about what we’re doing and what we like and whom we’re with
and what music we’re listening to. Not only is this an ambiguous half-truth,
but it masks the real truth: That the features and tweaks are expressions of
ever-more clever ways (tricks) to sell us to advertisers. To repeat what is now
a truism: The Facebook user is the product; the advertiser is the customer.
(Zuckerberg’s mantra could well be, “Pay no attention to the man behind the
curtain.”)
I don’t have any objection to an entrepreneur producing, for
profit, something that the public finds useful. My objection is to the
disingenuousness and, yes, dishonesty. I would happily pay a reasonable amount
for an ad-free Facebook—one that applies the principles of, for example, the
Duck Duck Go browser: “We don’t read your stuff, we don’t track you and we don’t
sell you to advertisers.”
So much for my critique of the Facebook business model.
Despite my misgivings, it seems that quite a few (million) people find it
useful. And, as it turns out, I just discovered one good thing about it myself
(in addition to the grandchild photos). I was scrolling back through my own
posts ("status updates")—quite a ways back—looking for a scrap of poetry I had posted, and I found
the process to be surprisingly interesting and enjoyable. Not because my entries
were so wise and witty, but because, it occurred to me, I was reading a
journal—a sort of diary. And that struck me as a potentially good thing
about Facebook. Depending on how one uses it, it can serve a function that is very
similar to how our forbears in earlier centuries used a diary or journal: to
record observations of the passing scene, the politics of the day, family news,
a bit of humor or poetry—even, in the case of our family, how the crops were doing
and how devastating the cloud of grasshoppers was. Although historically some diaries have, no
doubt, been intended to remain private, most journals have been kept with the
idea that the thoughts and news being recorded will one day be examined by a
later generation. Thus, the revelation that came to me about how Facebook postings
can serve as a journal is not that it is an opportunity for a narcissistic
treasuring of one’s own precious jewels of wisdom, but that it may be a very
practical way to provide the kind of message-down-the-years that grandchildren
previously discovered in their grandparents’ desk drawers or attics.
I started the blog that carries this essay as an attempt at
producing a digital journal (the pen-and-ink variety having come to naught for
me). It has worked pretty well in that regard (with occasional gaps of varying lengths).
And, in a very general sense, the main audience I have in mind for my blog is
two-fold: You, dear reader (and thank you); and—just as real to me—my grandkids,
twenty or thirty years from now. Not that I’m writing targeted entries to them, but
that they might be just as pleased one day to find the dusty papers of a grandparent as
I have been.
The more immediate nature of Facebook entries (as compared
to blog posts) makes them akin to “daily diary” jottings. Imagine an
eighteen-year-old great-granddaughter reading the Facebook Diary of her
great-grandmother—produced when she was eighteen years old herself. (And it might actually be beneficial if we all write these digital musings with the understanding
that our grandkids will one day see them.)
 |
An1860 letter to Caryl's great-grand-father
from a friend. In a later letter, he sheepishly
reports that his father had just bought him out of the Civil War draft. Early Facebook? |
For this very reason, I regularly order a handful of copies
of my blog in book form. (One for each of my grandkids to discover in 2035, three to push on my wife and daughters—now!—and one to keep for myself as a,
well… journal.) I’ve known of similar publishing possibilities for Facebook,
but have not seriously considered the idea because I have equated it with the
navel-gazing aspect—the worst feature—of “social” media. (One publishing title
is “EgoBook”--for the coffee table!) But what made me give it a second thought—and what made it an
“epiphany” for me—is that experience I had of scrolling through months of posts,
and realizing the similarity to an old-fashioned journal. That, plus the
discovery that one can edit these “Facebook Books,” choosing what to put in and
leave out, as one would surely want to do.
So there’s one good thing about Facebook. Perhaps another, I’ll allow, is that I get to peek at your Daily Diary entries. Some of which are more interesting than others.
So there’s one good thing about Facebook. Perhaps another, I’ll allow, is that I get to peek at your Daily Diary entries. Some of which are more interesting than others.
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I occasionally publish my blog collection (for the purpose stated above) with blog2print. I'm still researching apps for printing a Facebook journal book.
I occasionally publish my blog collection (for the purpose stated above) with blog2print. I'm still researching apps for printing a Facebook journal book.
