Most of us have been on Facebook twelve to fifteen years now. Facebook almost has a full generation under its belt. It has gone from a novelty to a way of life.
Being around this long I’ve started to notice certain aspects that can be part of a social study.
When Facebook popped up in 2008 I was happily married with a son. Pictures of my wife and I holding each other holding our son. We had huge smiles and we were next to each other.
A year later our second son showed up and the pictures on Facebook had my wife and I holding each other. Smiling at each other with a toddler and a baby in our arms.
The Facebook years moved along through my marriage and the pictures changed.
Posts of family appeared with the children in the middle of two unhappy parents. My wife on one side and me on the other. We still had smiles, but we were no longer touching. We were no longer next to each other.
2013 came around and our baby daughter appeared in the Facebook photos. By this time the pictures only had one of us with the kids or just the kids. If we had a family shot my wife and I had three kids between us and no smile.
As Facebook continued to embed itself into our everyday way of life my marriage was failing.
There were more pictures of just me or pictures of just me and the kids. No more pictures of my wife and I holding each other. No pictures of my wife at all were posted on Facebook. Then my relationship status changed.
It went from “married” to “it’s complicated” to “single.”
….. and Facebook caught it all. Preserved so all can see, but facebook was still a new tool. I didn’t catch this transformation until the night I was sitting alone in my new home. The night I started removing pictures of my soon to be ex wife.
……Destroying history….
Facebook captured the entire downfall of my marriage and I’ve seen it happen with many Facebook friends. Fifty years from now college students will study Facebook at the turn of the millennium and a chapter will focus on the failure of marriage captured on social media.
We have let this social tool become a future tool for archeologists, psychologists and historians.
This blog is almost over so you can start checking your pictures or your recently separated friend’s pictures.
I hope Facebook is a positive tool as the years go by. I hope someday when my children have milestones in their lives I can post pictures of them with both of their parents. Both of us smiling gleaming with pride.
The banker never wears his Mack in the pouring rain, very strange.
Wear something waterproof today. It’s supposed to rain sideways.
