I’ve been waiting to read more about what our classmate Kevin so eloquently described as “collapse of context” in our social media identities. I think for the majority of us that joined Facebook in the .edu era, this is especially true. There were already two or three years’ worth of college photos of us on our Facebook profiles when we entered the job market and worse, our mothers joined the network. Gilpin hits the nail on the head in the first two pages when she describes us having to construct an identity on these sites that is appropriate for a variety of groups (2012). I’m an integrated (work me, school me, family me, professional me) personification of myself online that has evolved over time into less of a true representation of myself than any real interaction with me in person. However, that is not to say that anything I put up is insincere. Just as those who participated in the Twitter study from this article, the social media content I produce is not “wholly representative” of me (Gilpin, 2012).

Interestingly enough, the photos of me on Facebook could tell a fairly accurate chronological story of the highlights of my life over the last six to seven years. I’ve always been someone that keeps a lot of pictures, but the widespread acquisition of point and shoot photos via the mobile phone have taken it to a new level. As Mendelson and Papcharissi bring up in their article, taking pictures of an event has been integrated in the experience of the actual event (2012). They also state via Barthes and Jacobs (1981) that photos provide proof of an experience (Mendelson and Papcharissi , 2012). I wonder if this will have a long term effect on the way millennials and the generations after recall memories. Will they be able to recall events as clearly as older generations without the cue of photos? The other element mentioned in the article that really struck me was the “moving map” concept. Our lives are somewhat documented through these public and shared photos so for ourselves and for others it become an ever growing representation of chronological events of our lives. Mine only moves forward from age 20 or so. What ramifications, if any, will this have for those that have been logged in since adolescence? Or worse, those whose parents have been posting pictures online of them since birth. Will their bosses eventually have access to middle school dance photographs due to the magic of “tagging”? Talk about collapse of context.

I really think Danah Boyd and I could be friends, at least until we had argument that could only be settled by Wikipedia. In her article Participating in the Always-On Lifestyle, she often dismisses the assumptions of social media skeptics. She argues that those who take advantage of the platform of social media are not are not the exhibitionists that some assume them to be, but are in fact simply “taking advantage of the affordances of these technologies to connect with others in a way that they feel is appropriate” (Boyd, 2012). However, I do think that social media has given an outlet those who were either already predisposed for exhibition or has awaken a latent need in others. I would say that only about 10% of my online network take advantage of the share button more than once a month, but those 10% seem deafening at times. Admittedly, I have complete control over what I’m exposed to online, and I choose not to “un-follow” those who post more than I want to know or are posting opinions I don’t share. That says more about me than anything, and I suspect others currently using their Facebook account to watch more than post are the same. They may be sharing in a way “they feel is appropriate” as Boyd states, but not everyone is going to share that opinion (2012). However, those who disapprove are largely going to be those not in the millennial generation, and older generations thinking everything is going to you-know-where because of the kids is nothing new. Boyd is correct that we all need to find a balance in this new world of 24 hour connectedness, which is why I’m turning my phone off during dinner.