Death of the Diary
What does it mean to keep a diary in the age of Facebook, asks Solomon Elusoji
or most millennials, a day seems odd without a trip to social media, whether it is scrolling through their Facebook newsfeed, replying to a Direct Message on Twitter or posting a manipulated picture on Instagram.
For most millennials, a day seems odd without a trip to social media, whether it is scrolling through their Facebook newsfeed, replying to a Direct Message on Twitter or posting a manipulated picture on Instagram. For many of their elders, reared in an analogue age, it’s a strange world. In March 2015, Facebook introduced a new feature on its service, On This Day. It is a memory feature that allows users view content they posted or engaged with on Facebook in the past. For example, if today is October 1, the user sees past status updates, photos, posts from friends, from October 1 of last year, two years ago, and so on. The amount of data Facebook has accumulated over the years made this feature an instant hit, as it gave users a sort of nostalgic feeling about their own life, the same emotions diaries are supposed to conjure. The difference between Facebook’s On This Day and a typical diary is that the former seems to do the job better.
Going by Merriam Webster’s definition of a diary as “a book in which you write your personal experiences and thoughts each day” it is hard to imagine a modern John Doe stowed away in a dark room, crouched over a leather bound note, scribbling away the experiences of his day. Instead, John Doe would rather flip out his smart-phone, log into Facebook, write about his day and publish it to friends and families, sometimes to strangers he will never meet. It is curious, this need for instant gratification, for the world to see even our intimate parts as quickly as they develop, that one begins to wonder about the evolutionary reason (if there is one) for keeping diaries private, before Mark Zuckerberg and his cohorts changed the world.
This reporter, then, went on a juvenile mission to find out people who still keep diaries in this age. A university student and mental health advocate, Olisa Eloka, kept one last year. “Writing your heart on paper is a great pleasure on its own,” he said. A Human Capital Development Professional who lives in Kaduna, Maryam Muhammed, still does it because “it takes a load off you, reminds you how much you have grown (or not), and more importantly, keeps you honest.” A fresh National Youth Service Corps graduate, Thelma Okonwa, said “it helps as a soothing balm; I use it as therapy.”
But when asked why the details recorded in their private diaries could not have been posted on their social media platforms, they all agreed, without exception, that some information thrive better in the dark.
“No, there are thoughts you keep to yourself and others you share,” Olisa said. “Take for example, your brother pissed you off so badly and you want to kill him. That kind of thought is better written down than shared on social media. Sharing thoughts like this could generate a feedback beyond your wildest dreams. And again, people would twist your thoughts on social media. People would always want you to explain your thoughts to them, to convince them. But when you write your thoughts, your feelings, you are your own audience. You don't owe anybody anything. Because you are writing your soul. You are reading your soul. And nobody would ever understand you more than you understand yourself. Simply put,
Away from the diarykeepers, social media is becoming more intimate than the most honest and brutal private diaries. It is where a woman comes to and shares her rape experiences; it is where a man comes to post pictures of him being eaten away by a disease, sometimes seeking help. It is where every achievement, every moment of joy, is celebrated