Social media as a modern archive

The number of sales of photo albums have decreased dramatically since approximately 2007, when what we call “new social media” began its development. Photo shops and labs became more and more focused on professionals, excluding masses from their primary target audience, and become more and more rare to see. Storing photos digitally, at least in the West, became a new standard, and collecting photographs in albums, as was so common in just 20 years ago, became unusual for our generation.

Why we don’t collect photos in albums anymore, and why social media is replacing them

Today photo albums can be found all over the web. Facebook and Instagram are probably the best examples of them, as the first allows users to sort images by folders, and the second one shows the exact timeline. Both of them show content sorted by time, and thus demonstrate a timeline of the user from the moment of signing up. One may argue that this is not a real photo collection, underlining the fact that only a selected number of photos are posted, especially excluding those, which are intended only for a close family circle. Nevertheless, social media shows a good part of person’s life.

A big difference between the above mentioned social media and the traditional photo albums — if we compare them only as a timeline or as a photo collection platform — is that most users don’t use it as a photo collection. The majority of users use social platforms for interaction with others, and photos serves only as supportive material. And still more and more people became owners of vast collections of their images. What can be seen here is that photos are posted just because they represent the important moment of the user, not because they just look nice or suits the post’s text content. Isn’t it what photo albums are supposed to do?

What is more important is that these new format “photo albums” — compared to the “classical” version of them — show an actual timeline of events. One can look through a certain period of time of another person or a group of people, follow any of the important events, or — what might be also interesting — see a certain event from the perspective of different people.

Usage of social media as a personal archive, even if used unconsciously, might serve a great experience in a long run. Collecting moments is important, both for history and for oneself, and while the means and tools might vary from oil-painted portraits to pixel-detailed photographs, the final goal remains the same.

Marina.