Evolution of Life Writing on Facebook

Facebook and life writing come hand in hand when it comes to the basis of social networking. In the new technological age of the 21st Century, life writing has evolved and transformed with the introduction of online social networks. (Van Luyn, 2015) With the new age of online diaries, the supposed privacy that was once associated with writing diary entries is now a thing of the past, with social networking being the all-time favourite ‘online diary’. With my history of being a regular Facebook user, I have seen many online diary entries about how people are feeling what they wish they were doing and what they were supposedly doing at that exact moment in time. 

In 1995, diaries began to appear online, typically developing out of the personal home pages of individuals already involved with internet technologies. (Blood, 2002) With the beginning of the ‘online diaries’ social network users were able to feel more comfortable and open to the idea of exposing their lives online with no fear of their lives being scrutinized by other online users. Now, however, in the new ages of online life writing users are becoming so confident with what they are revealing on their home pages of their inner most thoughts, more and more social networking sites are seeing many more diary like entries on their user’s pages.

With this ‘online diary’ phenomenon paperback diary entries are going to be so last century, as older generations will most likely shift towards the new age of online diary entries, either out of convenience or just becoming more comfortable with the ever growing technological modern society taking over the older mainstream way of  expressing one’s emotions.

Reference List
McNeill, L. (n.d.). Diary 2.0?. University of British Columbia, p.317.
Van Luyn, A. (2015). BA1002: Space and Identity: Genre and Transformation.