Facebook Blog 2

Facebook

During week four of semester 2 the BA1002 class focused on the sense of personal narrative and how it affected the truth within stories being told. Every single event that happens in an individual’s life can become a narrative to tell. A narrative is a retelling of an event that has previously occurred. While a story is just a recount of events, a narrative retrieves the events, perhaps leaving sketchy details out to avoid drama, consequences ect. People become emotionally attached to memories which then leads them to telling a narrative in more ways than once. One way to hold on to this memory is expressing it over social media.

          

     Facebook is a classic example for this. In 2011 Facebook updated the settings to having a personal timeline of events that have occurred in the user’s life on their page. When first creating your Facebook account, you are already forming the narrative by writing in your details that are required. Some of the narratives expressed over Facebook are not appealing at all and could later come to regret. “I can’t believe she’s writing these things.” “Not she,” I say. “Me.” “Why would anyone say this stuff about themselves on the Internet? It’s crazy!” “Exactly,” I say (Jay Asher). This timeline does not only let yourself view it as many times as you please, but also the many friends that you have on the social media page. This timeline expresses the narratives that have been said since the first day the person signed up for Facebook. However, Facebook has allowed an individual to delete any posts, statuses or photos on their page at any given moment. This can turn the narrative into a lie very quickly. Once the moment has been deleted off Facebook it is very easy not to mention that occurrence in the narrative at all as it may be shameful to the storyteller. This delete the narrative or not.

               As mentioned in this week’s lecture; the internet allows for mash-ups re-edits and collaboration, which in conclusion stretches the truth. In the sense of the timeline Facebook has created a life narrative on every single person who has the social media site. However the truth can be played around with a lot over this page as many posts can be deleted or edited to protect the facts. This creates the narrative to be incomplete of the event. Some recollections have reasons not to be published any longer as it can bring back the past in one’s life, causing many difficult issues.

References

1.      Goodreads. Quotes about facebook. Jay Asher, the future of us. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/facebook

2.     Definition of narratives. N/A - name, date. http://www.units.miamioh.edu/technologyandhumanities/index.html

3.     McNeill, L. (2012). There is no “I” in network: Social networking sites and posthuman auto-biography.