# highlights --- > [!highlight]+ Wed Jun 05 2024 10:51:59 GMT-0400 > > they are shifting their role from that of actor to that of producer or publisher or aggregator. > > facebook users -- not sharing firsthand info anymore, sharing news, videos, other ppl's content, etc > [!highlight]+ Wed Jun 05 2024 10:51:59 GMT-0400 > > Before social media came along, your social life played out in different and largely separate spheres. You had your friends in one sphere, your family members in another sphere, your coworkers in still another sphere, and so on. The spheres overlapped, but they remained distinct. The self you presented to your family was not the same self you presented to your friends, and the self you presented to your friends was not the one you presented to the people you worked with or went to school with. With a social network like Facebook, all these spheres merge into a single sphere. Everybody sees what you’re doing. Context collapses. > [!highlight]+ Wed Jun 05 2024 10:51:59 GMT-0400 > > Context collapse is a wonderful thing for a company like Facebook because a uniform self, a self without context, is easy to package as a commodity. > [!highlight]+ Wed Jun 05 2024 10:51:59 GMT-0400 > > To the extent that people still post reports on their firsthand experiences, they’re tending to use more selective networks, like Snapchat, that offer more precise audience control. People are retreating from public displays of experience to more private displays. They’re shifting from mass media to narrower media that, in their intimacy, more closely resemble traditional social settings. > [!highlight]+ Wed Jun 05 2024 10:51:59 GMT-0400 > > Facebook’s problem now is not context collapse but its opposite: context restoration. When people start backing away from broadcasting intimate details about themselves, it’s a sign that they’re looking to reestablish some boundaries in their social lives, to mend the walls that social media has broken. > [!highlight]+ Wed Jun 05 2024 10:51:59 GMT-0400 > > The protean self, we’re rediscovering, is a more comfortable self than the uniform self. Being forced into “one identity” is a drag. > [!highlight]+ Wed Jun 05 2024 10:51:59 GMT-0400 > > To remain interesting when viewed at a distance, when viewed through media, a person has to display continuing novelty — novelty of experience, novelty of thought. Very few of us can do that for very long.