Most of us don’t pay attention to our Facebook feed. Subconsciously, we look out for the things we want to find – Talk show pages, pictures of our favorite seniors who just graduated and statuses that have 300 likes and 50 comments.
The reason we search for our favorite news outlets is to watch a funny video or the cleverness of Jimmy Fallon and Ellen. We want to know what our friends are up to and see how they captured a hallmark moment of their life with a witty picture caption. And aside from quality content, the reason our eyes search for quantities on our Facebook feed, in the form of likes and comments, is because we want to know exactly how that person managed to get so many people to click a button or type on a keyboard. If our posts, whether a status, a photo, or a video, receives some attention, they hey, someone must care.
While this thought process is happening in our minds, what really is going on at Facebook's headquarters is a deeper science. The analysts of "Big Data" and geniuses of the "Internet of Things" have tracked, patterned, and dissected the way our generation communicates with the Facebook engine.
Since the fateful day I signed up for Facebook in 2009, I noticed the style changes of the Facebook homepage, as well as its updated features. But I never asked why Facebook switched up its scenery. Keeping us, “the consumer,” interested in Facebook’s interactive features was part of the changes, but more so were brands, media outlets, and celebrity injections into our personal landscapes.
Originally, I downloaded Facebook because I felt like I was missing out socially with my friends. Half the time my friends and I actually hung out in person, they were talking about Facebook or posting on Facebook and I, an amateur, didn’t get what Facebook was. So at first it was all social catch-up but now my time is split between interacting with friends and interacting with trending stories.
I am by no means an expert of data, but I have attempted to break up our Facebook feeds of the past seven years into three eras. When we reflect back on what we see on our Newsfeeds it tells us a little about ourselves. Different points in our Facebook “careers” mirror different spaces of time in our life, the people we have become close with, the outlets we interact with and the platforms that capture it all.
The Wordy Era
Lengthy, dramatic status updates. “Stole from Meg haha” Notes. The occasional Skype photo you uploaded (one embarrassing photo at a time). Or worse an entire 5-minute video of nothing — but don’t worry, you managed to post it onto someone’s wall.
We were wordy, we were hungry for attention, and we were still learning how to express our emotions. Mix maturity with an endless way of connections, and you have the first moments of our generation's Facebook life. If you haven't already, now is the time to go back and delete those statuses, photos and notes ... fast!
The Photo Era
At this point, our generation is beyond telling people how exciting their lives is and instead shows everyone their fabulous lives. Here began the enormous album uploads of 50, 100 or even 200 photos at a time. And it wasn’t just because our generation was traveling the world for the first time but because we thought our last year of high school and first year of college needed these many pictures. Looking ahead, I don’t see another part of my life that could have as many pictures as the ones I uploaded in the past. Uploaded videos and Livestream wasn't really a thing yet, but Instagram and editing apps certainly were. Galleries of self-created photo content was our way of corralling attention and sharing our experiences.
The Branded Era
On today’s feed, it is no longer you and your friends’ content. Your favorite companies, like Nike and Apple, your favorite teams and players, like the New York Giants and Steve Curry, your favorite new outlets, like Channel 7 Eyewitness News and NP, take up just as much time to digest as you scroll down your feed.
The competition amongst brands and their relative public relations agencies has never been more steeped in a “do or die” attitude. If your brand can’t go digital and attract followers, than well, it was nice while it lasted.
The most symbolic of this era are the trending videos.
I don’t even follow any of these outlets yet they show up on my Newsfeed. These outlets know that the more comments, likes, and shares they can generate, the more they can expand their impressions.
And what are you and your friends doing in this era? Not only are companies, sports teams, and news outlets branding their data, but we are also branding ourselves. We make sense of our lives by correlating it back to comedic, informative, inspiring, or subjective videos. Our generation shares the most, writes the most, and isn’t scared to give a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down.” In a sense, what used to be our prehistoric status updates are still there, just in the form of shared material.
Today socially, we will look to exploit Facebook Livestream to document our lives in real-time. This will replace our past obsession with large photo albums, wall videos, and pain-stakingly long status updates. As we mature from a freshman in high school to a graduate of a university, we continue to find the freshest ways to share our story, interests, and opinions with others. And even as the material we search for on Facebook evolves the urge to be connected is still alive. As the traction of these epochs have shown, our generation desires to impart our experiences, and we are not looking for a way to quiet our voices anytime in the near future.
