Yesterday Facebook announced a raft of changes to the site that are designed to help it compete with other social websites, and will no doubt have most users complaining again. Whilst many others are covering the changes in detail, I thought it was worth mentioning here because of the way the new features play towards young people.
One of the big deals on the redesigned profile pages is the new ‘timeline’ feature which allows users to scroll back through their history on the site. You can even click on old events and statuses to add notes and fill in gaps. Now that may seem like a dull or useless feature to you or I, but as Josh Catone wrote on Mashable today it is a move designed to retain and catalogue younger users:
For many older users, myself included, it is doubtful that we will go back to the time before Facebook (for me, late 2004) to fill in the gaps on my Timeline. From talking to other people my age since the announcement, it seems more likely that people of our generation will sanitize stuff that resurfaces rather than adding more content to the stream. But for younger users, they don’t need to fill in any gaps — their Timeline is already more or less complete.
He expands on this point explaining that:
Teens and children ages 9-19 spend about 55 minutes each day on Facebook, compared to 38 minutes per day for older users…Â They also share more about their lives than older users
then later, gets to the point about these latest changes:
It’s all about positioning Facebook as the ultimate communications tool for the next generation — one that goes beyond facilitating communication, but also records the history of everyone on the planet.
Personally, while I don’t have a particular issue with Facebook or these latest changes, there have been a lot of ongoing concerns over their privacy policies and the huge amount of data they now own about people. For young people growing up with Facebook as a primary communication tool, what are the potential dangers of documenting their whole lives on the website?
4 responses to “Facebook Changes mainly for Teens?”
Facebook Changes mainly for Teens?: http://t.co/jFewwz3z
Facebook Changes mainly for Teens? http://t.co/pz45AfiW
hi
good post. just finished one myself on the recent changes and the possible affects on young people.
http://smoorns.wordpress.com/2011/09/24/facebook-overhaul-and-how-it-affects-your-young-people/
I taught a seminar on tuesday about facebook and youth discipleship and a key point is that we need to continue to educate young people on platforms like facebook and the impact that it can have on them. not in a ‘wag your finger’ kind of way but out of love and respect for them.
Hi Smoorns,
Thanks for the comment. Nice article on the overview of Facebook changes by the way.
I think you’re right about the need to educate young people on online media – not just the safety aspect, but also the privacy issues, and the narcissistic tendencies that arise out of this kind of oversharing!