Are Facebook pages a digital representation of a memory box ?

I have noticed there has been a significant deterioration in the amount of objects I have collected and stored in my memory box recently . I have noticed that in the past 2-3 years very little has been deemed worthy enough to keep safe. There are plenty of reasons as to why this may be but I can help but notice that in the time iv stopped physically collecting memorabilia more activity has been logged on my social network Facebook page . Facebook introduced a new format in recent years called a timeline , every online member has one and it begins when you joined the page and documents every activity and puts it in order until the present . I joined Facebook in 2008 and I can click 2008 and see all my activity that year.


In my opinion Facebook has become a digitalised version of a memory box just more organised and doesn't use as much imagination . Facebook and other social media site are capable of storing images ,videos , private messages , public messages , locations , birthday wished , life events and much more . Instead of keeping things such as tickets to gigs or plane tickets ect it is already noted and a permanent fixture on my on line time line , private or public messages has virtually left hand written notes/ letters extinct and I never need to spend money printing images again . ( I still do , I love the physical quality's of a photograph) but you get the point . Below I have highlighted just a handful of activity's on my person Face book time line that could be linked back to things in a physical memory box. Some aspects of digital memory collecting is a positive things but others are just convenient .

Here is a status i posted about finishing my dissertation . I can now look through my time line and have a content reminder about the final few hurdles of my degree. without digital time lining i could have possibly kept the submission receipt or a copy of my work to add into my memory box. It defiantly is an achievement that i want to remember and the feeling of relieve/ pure joy I received on completion.

Instead of keeping birthday / greetings cards there is a permanent on-line record of everybody good wishes to you . Its a nice thing to re-visit especially considering that half the people who have wished you a happy birthday probably would never have gotten round to sending you a card. 

 A huge advantage to digital memory in my opinion is sharing photo albums . I have assess to almost every picture ever taken of me or of importance to me and we are able to share our personal collection of photographs that before social media sites were restricted to the photographer and not easily shared. 

A sense of life after death , this may be along shot but after experiencing lost we look at photographs differently , its a moment inn the past but with social media it very much reiterates the fact that at one point they were very much alive. I can look back at others timelines and view there on-line life , status updates ,pictures , videos , life achievements which is refreshing . I am aware the picture I have used to illustrate this point is of a dog but sadly my dog did have a Facebook page and I think t keeps there memory alive longer being digitalised. 

There is never a need to collect things on your travels again but Facebook logs your travels and even pins it onto a map . Looking at this reminds me that i need to travel more and get more purple pins on  my digital map.