Social media is controversial. Some people post all of their thoughts, beliefs and ideas, while others are more private and some edit every photo only posting the perfect ones. I think only posting perfect photos leads to several issues, but that\u2019s not the point I am trying to make. Facebook is literally a digital scrapbook of our lives. Future researchers will look at our profiles to understand our lives and our beliefs. Books (or maybe digital websites??) will be published about some of our lives using Facebook as a primary source. Wow\u2026 that\u2019s crazy to say. Facebook as a primary source?!?!<\/p>\n
Although Facebook depicts my life, and others lives, how accurate is it? I was recently going through my newsfeed and one of my friends was dating someone that looked different from whom I remembered. After looking at her profile I realized that she had a new boyfriend. I tried to remember the name of her previous boyfriend, so l looked through her old photos but noticed that none were there. I completely understand why someone would delete previous photos from a relationship or friendship or even delete embarrassing photos of themselves, but what will happen in 50 years when someone is trying to understand your life and there are huge \u201cFacebook\u201d gaps ? I mean I guess understanding the culture of Facebook is key to understanding the bias depiction of someone\u2019s life\u2026 but still.<\/p>\n
There have been countless times throughout my research where I have wished there was more information about an event, another photo, or a photo at a different angle. It\u2019s okay if those documents never existed, but if someone purposely deleted them because they were standing next to their ex-boyfriend, or they looked bad in it or whatever, I find that so frustrating. \u00a0I would consider myself a relatively sentimental person when it comes to photos, but my main hesitation towards deleting digital photos is that they never come back! Just because the photo is not there, does not mean a friendship, or a relationship or a bad hair phase did not exist it means there is poor documentation of it. \u00a0Every time permanently I delete a photo, I cringe a little bit.<\/p>\n
Just like you need to think before you post please think before you delete.<\/p>\n
Sincerely,
\nMany people that have done research on poorly documented events<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Social media is controversial. Some people post all of their thoughts, beliefs and ideas, while others are more private and some edit every photo only posting the perfect ones. I think only posting perfect photos leads to several issues, but that\u2019s not the point I am trying to make. Facebook is literally a digital scrapbook … <\/p>\n