Save your social media!

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JohnDurvin
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Joined: January 11th, 2011, 3:56 pm
Location: Atlanta, Jawjuh
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Save your social media!

Post by JohnDurvin » November 16th, 2013, 2:55 pm

I realized a little bit ago that a lot of today's communication gets forgotten about and sent to oblivion without our thinking about it. Whether it's for research or just nostalgia, it can be really interesting to read correspondence from a long time ago; these days we can haul an old shoebox out of the attic and read Grampa Emory's love letters to Grandma Millicent or see photos of the old family homestead, but future generations aren't exactly going to be able to pull out Grampa Grayson's iPhone 4 or Great-Aunt Khourtneigh's Twitter feed. Fortunately for future sociologists, the Library of Congress has already begun to step in, signing a deal in 2010 to archive all public tweets; for the moment, the public can do as it pleases, but in 2011 President Obama issued a memorandum to all Executive Department Heads that communications of all kinds must be archived, down to Obama’s personal Blackberry messages. When I first had this idea, I thought I’d start with my own MySpace profile, and for the first time in years, I logged on. I discovered that the site has been totally rebranded and redesigned, deleting all the old posts and chats in the process. MySpace was how my girlfriend and I communicated while attending undergrad in different states; I also had several friendships that came and went entirely online, now reduced to a “friend” status between my blank profile and theirs. And then there's problems of access--you might save it all to a Word file, but how're you going to open it in twenty years? Fifty? A hundred?

So I've started a Tumblr feed called "Posts for Posterity" for people to share old social media. There's not much there yet since I've always been a late adopter, but my main point here is that you should pull up your old accounts and see what's there, and if you'd like, submit them. Think about saving them, if only by pasting them into a .doc file, because you never know when a site's going to get "rebranded" and delete periods from your life to save bandwidth.
Everybody loves using things as other things, right? Check out my blog at the Cromulent Bricoleur and see one hipster's approach to recycling, upcycling, and alterna-cycling (which is a word I just made up).

Marihok
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Joined: August 23rd, 2018, 11:02 am

Save your social media

Post by Marihok » August 27th, 2018, 2:17 pm

Yes dear,
I am doing searching nowadays, and social media is very helpful in this job.

MichaelCopple
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Joined: January 6th, 2019, 12:02 am
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Re: Save your social media!

Post by MichaelCopple » January 6th, 2019, 12:08 am

That's an interesting idea. Sure going to be different in the future for our grandchildren! I am old fashioned and like my photos printed but that is changing with technology, too.

FrankHill
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Joined: February 16th, 2024, 5:26 am
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Re: Save your social media!

Post by FrankHill » February 16th, 2024, 5:35 am

Your initiative, "Posts for Posterity," is brilliant! Preserving our digital footprints is crucial for future generations to understand our era.

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