In December 2011, Facebook introduced a new update option to users called Timeline. In January 2012, Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that every Facebook profile would imminently be switched to the Timeline layout soon.
“To be honest, I absolutely hate it,” SMU sophomore Sara Martin said. “I’m really considering just completely deactivating my Facebook.”
According to Facebook’s blog, Timeline is a new kind of profile that lets users “tell a story” of their life beginning all the way back to birth. The first blog post on Dec. 15 of last year described it as a way to rediscover the things you shared from years ago. Users can highlight their most important posts, such as the music they listen to or how many miles they just ran. The timeline profile was optional, and users didn’t have to make the switch.
However, a Jan. 24 post said that over the next few weeks, all Facebook profiles would be switched over to Timeline.
Timeline allows users to choose a cover photo, which is a large horizontal photo across the top of their page in addition to their profile picture. The cover photo, according to Facebook’s blog, allows users to enhance their personalized profile.
A sidebar on the right-hand side of the profiles lists years ranging from present to “born.” Users can click on a certain year on a profile to find all of the posts, photos and events that were posted in those 365 days.
What users are frustrated with, however, is the odd and confusing layout that is completely different from all previous Facebook updates. The wall has been replaced with boxed posts all over the page in no apparent order.
“The layout is weird. I don’t like it at all,” Martin said. “Even my grandmother has a Facebook, and I doubt she will be able to figure it out. It’s not very user-friendly.”
SMU sophomore and Tate Lecture Series Chair for the Student Foundation Bo Kamensky also commented on the new layout.
“It’s really terribly configured,” he said. “It makes no sense. I made a timeline better than that in first grade.”
The fact that Timeline easily unearths the complete history of all of a user’s posts, photos and friend additions is concerning to many SMU students.
“It’s too much information about me all in one place,” Martin said. “I don’t want people to be able to go back and see what I was posting in 2007 as a high school freshman.”
A Facebook user commented on the original post and quipped that Timeline seemed “tailor-made for stalking.”
According to the blog post, users have a seven-day period where they can edit their Timeline and make sure that nothing they want to be private is public.
After the seven-day grace period, their Timeline goes live for all of their friends to see. However, for many users who have been with Facebook since 2008 or earlier, this hiding and editing could be a lengthy process.
SMU sophomore Hannah Rittenberry doesn’t like the new changes at all. She said that with all of the schoolwork she has already, the process of editing her Facebook Timeline is just going to be another hassle.
“I’m uncomfortable with all of that old information [becoming] so easily accessible,” she said. “I knew it wasn’t off the Internet forever, but before, no one could click on a year and see everything I posted or said that certain year.”
Martin said that she could really care less about people knowing her story, and she doesn’t care much for other users’ stories, either.
“Facebook is a place where I can post photos of me and my friends or post links to their wall, not share with my entire friend list what I ate for dinner or how well I ran a mile,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that’s why people have Twitter.”
With all of the new changes and apprehension to accept the new Facebook layout, there is the question of whether or not Timeline could be the catalyst that breaks many students’ apparent Facebook addictions.
“How could you delete it?” Kamensky said. “I don’t check it very often, but it’s still the best way to stay in touch with people, especially people you don’t talk to regularly. It’s email but without an actual address.”
“Society is way too caught up in Facebook for many people to delete it,” he added. “But at the same time, people should complain.”
“I doubt this will make many people completely delete their Facebooks,” Rittenberry said. “They will whine for a while, but like after every update, we will all get used to it and whine when they change it again.”