It’s been a few weeks since Facebook timeline arrived and shook up the constantly changing social media. Some are happy with it, some are not, but is it me or did stalking people on Facebook just get a whole lot easier?
In the words of Facebook, “Your timeline is your collection of the photos, stories and experiences that tell your story” and “when you upgrade your profile to timeline, you’ll find all of the information from your old profile along your timeline.”
That’s right, that means your status update in 2008 about the massive diarrhea that you hoped everyone had forgotten about by now, can be revisited by anyone who is curious enough to go digging through an archive of old posts on your Facebook page.
To describe it to anyone who doesn’t understand what a Facebook timeline is, there’s literally a line that runs down your page with clickable and scrollable links to days, months, years, which will take you to all the information that person posted on that day, month or year.
Before you stop reading this article to log onto Facebook and attempt to delete those age-old photos of you in a thong at 13, you should know that Facebook has given people some time to transition.
“Once you get timeline, you have seven days to preview what’s there before anyone else sees it. You can hide any story from your timeline, star the stories you want to highlight and even add life events to earlier dates along your timeline.”
Cal State Long Beach students have mixed feelings about the big change on Facebook.
Senior communication major Nicole Richardson said she prefers the old format.
“I think it gives people a chance to stalk [others] because you can go back to see what people have posted,” said Richardson. “I don’t want people to go back and look at my stuff, not that I have anything on there.”
Richardson’s concern for privacy constantly came up in CSULB student’s reactions to the Facebook change, but some students said they just don’t care either way.
Junior film major Amberlyn Storey said she feels indifferent about the change. On the other hand, she said that it makes Facebook more confusing for others.
“I think for an older person, it’s complicated. It already was complicated, now it’s really complicated,” Storey said.
She said older students like herself who aren’t as tech savvy, might find it a little more difficult to adjust to the new settings.
Storey is correct. It surely is an adjustment for anyone. It personally took me a week to adjust to all its functions.
It pretty much does everything your old Facebook does. However, it just makes it easier for friends and stalkers to access older posted information of yours. In other words, it’s fun, fun, fun!
What do you think about the new feature? Are you concerned about your privacy? Have you stalked anyone lately?