I recently dug into near-decade-old Facebook messages and had a similar experience. Once you strip away all of the fancy new mobile-era features, the core messaging medium has hardly changed. I found dreadful conversations that took place at 4AM in my college library, conversations with exes, conversations with people I don’t even remember, conversations with people who aren’t on Facebook anymore, and conversations with friends who have since passed.

I dove deeper and deeper into the messages until I hit the beginning of my Facebook existence. The experience impacted me in various ways for a solid week.