Imprisonment by the Past

Every time I look at a photo of Mark Zuckerberg, I think he looks to me to be a sleazy little twit. Now I see that beginning August 3rd,  Facebook will automatically convert all user accounts to their “Timeline” view. What twit-ish-ness is this!

When I first signed up for Facebook I thought of it as an innocuous little convenience with which friends and acquaintances could broadcast among themselves, messages about their evanescent activities and thoughts in real time, like conversations with friends at the local breakfast shop, water cooler asides and cocktail party trivia.

But with this new Zuckeresque innovation, all the convivial real-timey-ness disappears and Facebooking becomes a more dangerous proposition. With the Zuckerbergian Timeline, all of our past misdemeanors — OMG!, did I or one of my “friends” actually post that to my Wall way back when? —  are queued up like digital footprints that will follow us forever. Like a ball and chain, beginning August 3rd, all Facebook users will have to drag their past along with them, like it or not. Of course our digital trail has always been the problem with “social media” in general, but Zuckerberg carries this liability to new lows.

I have remained a somewhat reluctant FB user because I enjoy the occasional comments from friends and acquaintances, most of which have been delightfully forgettable. Beginning Aug. 3, you can forget about forgetting. Courtesy of Zuckerberg, you will become a prisoner of your past.

Just so you understand, Zuckerberg’s Timeline option is not optional. The best you can do is to hide your timeline from yourself so that you can forget while other are constantly reminded. If you are a Facebook user, be careful what you post, and pick your friends who will post to your wall with equal care, because Facebooking can be dangerous to your future.