Now that almost everyone has received the Facebook Timeline update, I’m ready to publicly declare some of my own opinions on the update and some of my predictions as to how Facebook Timeline will change lives in the future.
Before I really get in to why Facebook Timeline is so revolutionary, I would like to preface by noting that there are some obvious privacy concerns with Timeline and there can be a creep factor involved if you have not properly configured your Facebook profile.
See also: How to Prepare Your Facebook Profile for the Timeline Update
All the creepiness beside however, Facebook Timeline is a really really powerful tool. I have been using it since September and I love the opportunity it provides in regards to looking back at my own life as well as the lives of those close to me.
Effectively Gauge the Direction of Your Life
As you become more active with Facebook Timeline, you can more easily see the evolution of your life, the accomplishments you’ve reached, the friends you’ve met and the places you’ve traveled. It really gives you a better idea of how you’ve arrived at whatever point in life that you’re currently at.
It also allows to take a look back and better understand how the decisions you’ve made have shaped the direction of your life. Many people say the best way to prepare for the future is to look at the past – with Facebook Timeline you can do that in your very own life.
Your Great-Grandchildren Will Appreciate Facebook Timeline
I don’t usually bring my personal life into my blog posts but for the discussion of Timeline I am going to make an exception.
My grandfather died more than a decade before I was born. I’ve heard stories of him and seen him in a few photographs. Other than that, I don’t have a great idea of who my grandfather really was as a person. If he had kept an active Facebook Timeline (impossible at the time), I would have a much better idea of who he was.
Obviously when posting on your Timeline you need to be conscious of what you want other people to know about you and what you don’t. Once you hide all of the stuff that you want to keep private, you’ve got an autobiography containing rich media content for the world to see.
Imagine if your relatives from 200+ years ago had Facebook Timeline profiles! How cool would that be?
Facebook Timeline or similar services will serve as great ways to remember loved ones. If you’r parents are on Facebook, you know that your grandchildren will know so much more about their great-grandparents than you know about your own.
Facebook Timeline could be displayed at wakes and funerals to remember the passing of loved ones. I also anticipate that Facebook will offer a way to publish your Facebook Timeline profile into a print version to have a hard bound autobiography of your life.
Final Thoughts on the Future of Facebook Timeline
As I mentioned earlier, the creep factor that comes along with Facebook Timeline is something that one needs to be aware of. Make sure you group your friends into different groups and post your status updates to only the groups that you would like to have access.
Once you get a handle on managing your privacy on Facebook Timeline, you can then sit back and enjoy all the benefits it allows. The older I get, the more interested I become in the lives of my passed family members and by keeping my own Facebook Timeline profile, I am confident that those who come after me will have a way to gauge who I was as a person, what aspects of life I was most interested in and what I enjoyed the most in life.
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below!
