It's to personal. The new timeline shows every little thing you do when you are on your Facebook account. If you read a questionable article, play a silly game, or like a strange page, your whole Facebook world can see it if they visit your timeline. You no longer can set automatic censorship, creating a personified 'this is me' page. Sure, you can go to your own timeline to remove things, but you don't know who has already seen it. It's that knowledge that makes you feel like you have egg on your face when you click 'remove'. Facebook's timeline has taken out the ambiguity of creating the type of social network persona you want to be. It has made it's site a digital version of who you really are. Not in the physical sense which can be cool in a video game, but in the internal sense. That digital wall between who we are and who we show has been torn down. The social network world isn't ready for something that real.We like a place that we can control to show only the parts of our personality we want to share. Timeline has take away the 'tough' guy, the 'mean' girl. It's ripped open the 'nice' guy, the 'sweet' girl. It's made us real, flawed ,inconstant, hypocritical,curiously human in a world that gave us a way to ignore those undesirable parts.
It makes us angry when the mask gets stripped away before we are ready. The timeline gives literal meaning to the word Facebook. The timeline is a book version of your personality, you true personality, not the one you wanted others to see. Everyone will know you read that social reader article about a subject contrary to what said you believed. Everyone will know you played social Sims or some other equally ridiculous game. Everyone will know you liked weird guy who sells weird things. Facebook timeline is exposing traits about ourselves we aren't ready to share with some of our social networkees we've accepted has digital friends. It is doing all this in the measurement of time. So not only are you exposed, but it tells when you were exposed. It has evaded the sanctity of when you do what you do. In a world where time is everything and everyone is to busy, this timeline lets all your friends see just how much of your busy time you have wasted. The hate of timeline is not so simple an explanation of 'people don't like change'. It runs much deeper and much to personal. Timeline has ripped off a social band aide revealing a still raw sore that has not even begin to heal.
Timeline could be considered the next natural step in the social network phenomenon that has weaved it's way into our very human need to interact with each other. It's ahead of it's time. We are still to emotionally young to have our digital world reveal our true personalities. I'm sure the next generation will be more excepting. It probably has already started to happen. Social networks are a huge part of a teenagers social life. It's part of their world and who they are, so the timeline is the extension of their neighbors watching them mow the lawn or what store packages they are bringing in the house. It's their friends in there room looking at all their stuff. It's sharing who they are on a intimate way and solidifying the friendship. This digital network is real to them. Those over 30 probably will never understand this viewpoint. I know I don't most of the time.
Timeline is here to stay. So is the hate until the wounds heal and we accept that our lives now have a very real digital component.
I'll go first, here's my timeline in all it's human glory: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1514217643 and yes I'm a bit embarrassed, so I hope you enjoy it.
