Facebook to hold your next meeting archive#

Some were in their final year of university study and were looking for a job. For another, the gaps in his timeline elicited stories about his gender transition that led him to switch to a new profile.Īs our participants delved into their past many reflected on points in their lives where they were making critical decisions about their futures such as graduation, launching their careers and starting their own families. A photo of one participant sleeping on her father’s couch, for example, reminded her of a painful breakup with a partner. Sometimes seemingly banal disclosures would remind them of more complex stories that were not immediately obvious. As our participants scrolled back through their Facebook timelines with us, they recounted the experiences they had posted to the site: exam results, new romantic relationships, breakups, losing a job, travel, and so on.

Facebook to hold your next meeting archive#

Their Facebook profiles have become effectively an archive of their lives. We spent two years interviewing these twenty-somethings to explore how they had documented their experiences of growing up on Facebook. Those who joined in their early teens are now in their twenties and have “grown up” on Facebook, documenting their life through text, images, videos, and geo-location data such as “check-ins”. We are now able to reflect on the long-term use of Facebook, which has enjoyed unrivalled longevity and growth. The site was launched in 2004, and so those meeting Facebook’s minimum age requirement of 13 will, in 2017, be the first generation for whom Facebook has always existed. Despite suggestions that young people are losing interest in the platform, its 1.5 billion users still puts Facebook at the centre of social media.