Brandtzaeg, Petter and Luders, Marika - 2018 - Time Collapse in Social Media

# notes --- - [[{1.2a2d} time collapse]] - social media is a self-documentation practice… - posts create a life-log… although i guess that depends on how you use it - content “may lose its essence when consumed outside of the context in which it was created” - our ideas of privacy are changing from “the right to be left alone” to “the right to be forgotten” - archive agency… # abstract --- Context collapse, or the flattening of multiple audiences into a single context, has been an important notion in research on privacy experiences, self-performance, and changing user practices in social media. Yet, previous research has mainly addressed context collapse in spatial rather than temporal terms. The resulting lack of an understanding of time in social media limits our conception of the social media context. The aim of this article is therefore to go beyond the spatial dimension in the current notion of “context collapse” in social media. We discuss relevant theories, empirical evidence, and technical features that address the importance of a time dimension and suggest a collapse of temporal patterns in social media. **By introducing the concept of “time collapse,” we account for how context in social media may muddle the time boundary between past and present, which, in turn, can affect how users manage their identity and performance on social media. Whereas research on social media has commonly addressed self-performance and impression management, we understand self-identity as an entity in progress.** We analyze the results of two empirical case studies to suggest how and why a collapse of time related to self-performance is becoming increasingly prevalent, focusing on young people and Facebook. Our analyses contribute to a new understanding of time and the prolonged self-documenting practices typical of social media. Our research offers a unique understanding of the nature and conceptualization of time that may guide future directions in the study of social media and their implications for young people. # highlights --- >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=1&annotation=SNAISLXJ) > >modern social media profiles are often non-anonymous, with users revealing their real offline identities (Zhao, Grasmuck, & Martin, 2008) > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=1&annotation=V98SWL26) > >many social media users—including, in particular, Facebook users—have now chronicled a decade or more of their lives online, with digital traces linked to their past identities available to their friends and acquaintances. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=1&annotation=W9WBWZN3) > >modern social media may also capture, archive, and make semi-publicly or publicly available a history of the self. > > > > >[!header-quote|#ffd400]+ pg. [1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=1&annotation=P5W6IS8W) > >**Current studies have not investigated how self-identity is an entity in progress in relation to social media performance over time.** #topic/identity #topic/social_media #type/highlight > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=1&annotation=FXHLH8XE) > >In particular, younger users born after 1990, or “social media natives,” who have grown up with social media like Facebook, may experience that their life and identity transitions are marked by different self-performance practices in social media from their early youth to their young adulthood. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=1&annotation=TR5J4PY2) > >Context collapse, or the flattening of multiple audiences into a single context, has been an important notion in research on privacy experiences, self-performance, and changing user practices in social media. > > > > ^8ac74e >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=1&annotation=4TQ6XBV9) > >The resulting lack of an understanding of time in social media limits our conception of the social media context. > > > > >[!highlight|#a28ae5]+ pg. [1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=1&annotation=XLHPW6C9) > >By introducing the concept of “time collapse,” we account for how context in social media may muddle the time boundary between past and present, which, in turn, can affect how users manage their identity and performance on social media. Whereas research on social media has commonly addressed self-performance and impression management, we understand self-identity as an entity in progress. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [1](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=1&annotation=RYXI6248) > >Our analyses contribute to a new understanding of time and the prolonged self-documenting practices typical of social media. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [2](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=2&annotation=95M4U3Y4) > >Past and archived content in social media may affect both memory and self-performance. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [2](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=2&annotation=59923LVG) > >searchability of time-stamped content in social media may, therefore, influence humans’ memories (Wang, Lee, & Hou, 2017) and their experiences of time > > > > >[!research|#ffd400]+ pg. [2](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=2&annotation=MHU6ATP9) > >previous research has suggested that the development of life “without being perpetually or periodically stigmatized as a consequence of a specific action performed in the past” (Mantelero, 2013, p. 230) is a fundamental human need. It is, therefore, increasingly important to understand how time is perceived in the context of a non-anonymous social media environment when investigating the behaviors of social media users. > > > > >[!highlight|#5fb236]+ pg. [2](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=2&annotation=H3RNR7BB) > >Marwick and boyd (2011) describe context collapse as a social or spatial collapse, in which individuals must meet the expectations of multiple and diverse audiences simultaneously and which complicates self-performance. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [2](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=2&annotation=REC5DA77) > >We propose that social media, as enduring and sometimes unpredictable life-logs, are increasingly experienced as a collapsing of the past and the present. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [2](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=2&annotation=N5HWR67G) > >we discuss how social media in general, and Facebook in particular, contribute to a blurring of time and a muddling of past and present experiences—a time collapse. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [2](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=2&annotation=QWB59NBZ) > >We suggest that social media users sense collapses in both time and social space (i.e., context) > > > > ## Background >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [2](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=2&annotation=KATHYDCQ) > >the concept of context collapse builds on Goffman’s (1958/1990) analysis of the structures of social situations. Goffman discussed how individuals tailor performances according to various social settings. Individuals segregate among different audience types to identify appropriate performances for distinct social situations (Goffman, 1959/1990). > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [2](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=2&annotation=SUBK3VV7) > >such impression management is complicated in the online context of multiple flattened audiences. In research on online self-presentation and socializing, context collapse typically refers to how social media flatten multiple audiences into a single context (e.g., Davis & Jurgenson, 2014; Hogan, 2010; Marwick & boyd, 2011, 2014; Papacharissi, 2012; Vitak, 2012; Wesch, 2009). > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [2](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=2&annotation=CXZRB2IU) > >Navigating multiple audiences in the same place can cause embarrassing and harmful situations, as it may blur borders between the public and the private, the professional and the personal (Davis & Jurgenson, 2014). > > > > >[!highlight|#2ea8e5]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=77MT7TUY) > >the notion of a social situation refers to certain time/space coordinates (Meyrowitz, 1986, p. 333) > > > > >[!highlight|#5fb236]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=ICHYTU87) > >boyd’s (2010) work suggested that persistence, replicability, scalability, and searchability introduce a social dynamic that forces people to cope with environments in which contexts collide and pointed to how content created in networked publics is captured and recorded. Most of these systems make such content persistent and searchable (i.e., searchability) by default, such that it can be retrieved at any time. The consequence is that content “may lose its essence when consumed outside of the context in which it was created” (boyd, 2010, p. 47). > > > > > > >context DOES provide essence!!! >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=6CT73LGM) > >we propose that time, in the context of social media, cannot be understood as a continued progression of events that occur in apparently irreversible sequences from the past through the present. > > > > >[!research|#ffd400]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=THQVAK2D) > >Kaun and Stiernstedt (2014) developed the concept of “social media time” to explain how Facebook provides users with an archival repository of memories, empowering them to interact with historical content, and to describe how users with specific historical purposes make use of the past as archived on Facebook. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=RPV5NR5V) > >social media, as archival repositories of past performances and memories, may cause tensions for the present self. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=D78PH8IW) > >Facebook content may be experienced as meddling current perceptions of the self (Zhao et al., 2013), and adolescents may experience old Facebook histories as embarrassing (Schoenebeck et al., 2016) > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=AMWIYMBV) > >In most social media, content creates tensions between self-presentation and archiving (Xu et al., 2016). > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=KLHGIMAF) > >**The permanence of content over time, hence, turns the passing of time into a privacy challenge.** This research is similar to our argument that communication and identity performance are affected by the time collapse in social media. Hence, the persistence of content challenges identity and privacy. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=VDADG9HL) > >Whereas the nickname culture of previous online communities produced something of a privacy shelter (Bechar-Israeli, 1995), social media natives have grown up with a history of user-generated content linked to their real names. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=27CGDZ75) > >In addition, and different from a decade ago, new search functions and features, such as Facebook Timeline, Facebook Graph Search, and Google social website indexing, make past content on Facebook and similar sites more accessible to other users (Ayalon & Toch, 2017). > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=FJEM9WQ2) > >We situate our proposed notion of time collapse within a theoretical framework in which the self is considered a workin-progress over time. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [3](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=3&annotation=C37E4Z68) > >the process of becoming a person is incomplete and continuous (Foucault, 1997; Giddens, > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [4](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=4&annotation=D7GCE6UH) > >1991 Rogers, 1961/1995). > > > > >[!highlight|#2ea8e5]+ pg. [4](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=4&annotation=6LFHWHA9) > >For the purposes of this article, Giddens’ (1991) discussion of self-identity in late modernity helps frame our proposed notion of time collapse. > > > > >[!research|#ffd400]+ pg. [4](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=4&annotation=4HWU2IJW) > >Giddens (1991) contrasted the self in the late modern age with the self in pre-modern cultures, observing that whereas the attributes of identity (e.g., gender, social status, and linage) used to be relatively fixed and linked with tradition, the individual in late modernity is expected to reflexively shape his or her own life trajectory. #action/research > > > > >[!header-quote]+ pg. [4](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=4&annotation=R6ZMC8B6) > >Giddens (1991) referred to “the self as reflexively understood by the person in terms of her or his biography” (p. 53). Self-identity is something individuals routinely create and sustain. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [4](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=4&annotation=24H6E29Q) > >Time collapse depicts how old content sometimes **disrupts current self-performances**. > > > > >[!header-quote|#a28ae5]+ pg. [4](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=4&annotation=FPJ67KAH) > >The permanence of social media, which archives traces of the self at various points in time, is very different from the ephemeral self-performances that occur offline. #type/highlight #topic/life_archiving > > > > >i'm trying to put USERS in control of time and context... these are useful tools for active and intentional identity DEVELOPMENT as a distinct and separate concept from PERFORMANCE. >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [4](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=4&annotation=9UM3DQ7Z) > >The construction and maintenance of these self-narratives, thus, has largely been intangible and ephemeral. Conversely, in social media, there is always the possibility that digital traces from the past will be inadvertently and unpredictably drawn into the present. Digital traces refer to individuals’ traceable activities online and are often referred to as time-stamped digital footprints of expressions in social media (Lewis, Kaufman, Gonzalez, Wimmer, & Christakis, 2008). Moreover, old traces of who an individual once was sometimes resurface via an intermingling of human and machine practice; for example, a peer may come across an old photo and like it or comment on it. Algorithms respond, making the photo appear in the Facebook newsfeeds of more people, as if it were a part of the present rather than the past. > > > > >[!highlight|#a28ae5]+ pg. [4](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=4&annotation=S9DWPM8P) > >Since that self-identity is a work-in-progress and an individual’s **identity is transient**, self-documenting practices, such as writing a journal, writing letters, and taking photographs can all be regarded as techniques for capturing or fixating fleeting moments of time. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [4](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=4&annotation=H596EGPP) > >Whereas these old forms of capturing moments also transcend time, we argue that the documenting practices typical of social media sometimes do more: They collapse time, muddling the distinction between the current version of a life narrative and previous versions. > > > > ## Empirical Work: From the Passing of Time to Time Collapse ### Facebook 2009: A Time Before Timeline >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [5](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=5&annotation=K8IAE6QC) > >the context collapse in Facebook made study participants increasingly self-aware, with the result that they presented conformed, glossy, and highly filtered versions of themselves > > > > >[!header-quote|#ffd400]+ pg. [5](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=5&annotation=G569W5L9) > >Facebook’s introduction of Timeline reframed these past updates as “a narrative biography, a story chronicling how life has been up to the present day by rearranging bits and pieces uploaded previously” (Van Dijck, 2013, p. 204). Thus, the 2009 (pre-Timeline) Facebook was not designed to intermingle the past with the present. > > > > > > >this is a worthwhile endeavor, users should just be in control of it. and also how do we distinguish between this type of chronological social media and more SOCIALLY DRIVEN social media....... dialogue, communication, etc.... i feel like this decreases with context collapse. how do we RECONTEXTUALIZE our digital presence? >[!highlight|#a28ae5]+ pg. [5](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=5&annotation=9ZHMEVW3) > >Participants wanted to come across as looking good and being happy and positive. For young participants, being authentic was also considered important. This self-perceived cautiousness in sharing practices in the present helped to explain why the participants did not worry too much about leaving digital traces that would be available in the future. > > > > > > >authenticity >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [5](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=5&annotation=KPIBHUF5) > >Adult participants appeared to worry more about the younger generation’s ability to consider the appropriateness of digital traces for their future selves: The things I publish about myself and my family, I’m not worried about that. I don’t think I’ve published anything that can cause harm. But considering what kids and the young, what they put out. Like, they’re kids; they don’t think about it. I think everyone has done things in their youth, and it’s important the young people are reminded that what they put out, anyone can find that later. (Hanna, 43 years) > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [5](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=5&annotation=DCHQ8WU3) > >Young people are vulnerable. Like, if you’re 17 and start to put out a lot of stuff on Facebook that you regret three years later when you’re more grown up, or if you’re applying for a job and your potential employer Googles you and finds your open profile on Facebook. (Lisa, 32 years) > > > > ### Social Media Natives in 2015: Social Media History >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [6](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=6&annotation=CABIZUXJ) > >The participants were chosen because they were born between 1989 and 1995, and they were, therefore, teenagers when social media like Instagram and Facebook became popular for communication, sharing, and self-expression (e.g., social media natives). In this regard, the selected individuals had grown up with popular social media as part of their self-presentation strategy and identity construction. > > > > > > >ahh but how are you defining construction? >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [6](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=6&annotation=EYAW7HNU) > >They felt jealous of older journalists who had primarily professional and more consistent social media identities, without traces of their experimental youth. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [6](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=6&annotation=Z8VHBM7M) > >They typically expressed concerns about how people could look up their histories on social media > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [6](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=6&annotation=HQL3L5BQ) > >A typical implication seems to be that young people avoid expressing their opinions on Facebook in particular and on social media in general > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [7](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=7&annotation=XY45RJA3) > >the participants experienced both context collapse and the dimension of time in how they behaved and acted on social media. They had been on social media since their early teenage years, documenting the transition across various phases of life from experimental youth to adult professional. **They were in the midst of shaping their life trajectories: of constructing and maintaining their self-narratives (Giddens, 1991)**. Their reflections imply that it can be awkward to experience the echoes of past content and expressions in the present (e.g., Mantelero, 2013; Schoenebeck et al., 2016). > > > > > > >need to read the giddens thing, esp self-narratives >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [7](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=7&annotation=KNMD9582) > >social media natives we interviewed in 2015 experienced more clashes between their experimental youthful social media identities and adult norms about how to behave as professionals online. This may be because these young people had more comprehensive online lifelogs than the 2009 participants > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [7](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=7&annotation=2RP2KY8M) > >searchability and visibility of an identity related to online posts affect what and how young people share. > > > > ## Discussion >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [7](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=7&annotation=Q2YHMQS7) > >By contrast, however, the young social media natives in the 2015 study experienced a distinct time collapse, such that their current social media performances were affected by their past digital expressions or footprints. Hence, young people who have grown up with social media struggle to navigate an unpredictable structure of time (Morioka et al., 2016) that mixes past and present. They experience uncertainty in how time will change and how old content, expressions, and profiles will affect future interactions. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [7](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=7&annotation=PIHZUPWT) > >We argue that there are three reasons the near and distant past, documented as digital traces, appear increasingly unpredictable as traces situated in the present. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [7](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=7&annotation=U6FIJSDF) > >anonymity and nicknames produce a sense of shelter. Content archives appear semi-secluded, and accessing them requires knowing the undisclosed links between the online profile and the offline self. Yet, anonymous and pseudonymous profiles are clearly not without risk of being disclosed and revealed. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [7](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=7&annotation=WTHXXKRV) > >through social media, different versions of the self are made manifest and retrievable. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [8](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=8&annotation=7T9BNBMV) > >the changing notion of privacy from “the right to be left alone” to “the right to be forgotten” (Mantelero, 2013) #action/research > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [8](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=8&annotation=T7DVN3H5) > >We use the term archive agency to describe social media archives that perform actions on their own. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [8](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=8&annotation=H96PT6SC) > >**In summary, time collapse involves (a) a full-name online presence in (b) social spaces in which content is archived and (c) made semi-publicly or publicly available.** > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [8](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=8&annotation=DFYU2U3I) > >with time, people engage with increasingly heterogeneous audiences, and these audiences are provided the means to fold back in time and revisit digital traces of past self-performance. > > > > >[!highlight|#ffd400]+ pg. [8](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=8&annotation=95S8G6TM) > >Time collapse is, therefore, characterized by a desynchronization between how people want to perform (their present expressions) and how their current selves are affected by past expressions and others’ access to them. As time passes and more persistent social media content is added, users experience an increased need to manage this content, which seems to complicate self-performance. > > > > >[!research|#2ea8e5]+ pg. [9](zotero://open-pdf/library/items/M7ETNWB4?page=9&annotation=TKKZVCZH) > >Giddens, A. (1991). Modernity and self-identity: Self and society in the late modern age. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press. > > > >