I was completely unaware of the new Facebook app until it was actually released. When I saw mention of it in my Facebook feed, I decided to give a try. Because I’m the kind of person who downloads new versions of apps as soon as they’re released. After reading about this new app, Paper, I was all the more eager to try it. I intensely dislike the Facebook mobile app design (and don’t get me started on Messenger…) so I’m game for anything that promises to be even a slight improvement.
I was quite pleasantly surprised by Paper. It has a simple and beautiful design. I wasn’t surprised to find that designers who had worked with Apple were involved with the development of Paper. I’m pleased that at least someone recognizes that users want a clean and aesthetically appealing design. Paper is image, rather than text, based. The design is much less distracting, and I find myself reading and focusing more on what is being posted, rather than scanning through and being overwhelmed by it all. So Paper seems, at least so far, to encourage a slower and more purposeful perusal of online content. The presentation of each item on the screen by itself is a reminder to slow down and pay attention.
It is interesting that Paper is so consciously trying to recreate the celebration of images that we enjoyed before the digital age. We used to hold pictures of loved ones, collect postcards and letters, read a physical newspaper with articles and pictures. While it is laudable to confront the challenges of this era by drawing inspiration from our past, there are two major differences which make me question how viable it is to create digital parallels to the old way of living. If the content of Paper were on physical paper, our homes would be overflowing with stacks upon stacks of paper. The sheer quantity of content today makes the situation problematic. It is one thing to have a treasured photo album of loved ones, but what about when your iPhoto album has over 6,000 photos (yes, that’s me)? How do we imitate the old way when we generate so much content? And the other problem for me is the brevity of content. What happens to your Facebook feed? It fades into oblivion within a few days; we can’t remember anything we posted last month or last month, or three years ago. I think I’ve been using Facebook for three or four years. And what happened to everything that I’ve posted? It is gone. Sure, my pictures are there. And my most recent status updates are easily found. But that’s it. I remember posting funny stories about my siblings. I can’t remember those funny stories now. And there’s no way I’d ever be able to dredge them up from wherever old status updates go, or at best it might take me a few months to find them. We’re encouraged to use Facebook and social media to capture moments that are precious to us, but why? So that in a few months we can completely forget about it and never be able to find them again? This is partly why I began a blog, and why I am really happy about that decision even now. I have written over 400 blog posts, dating back to 2010, and they’re all here, categorized and tagged. This is, in a sense, the history of me. But Facebook is so complicated. We have pictures of what a random acquaintance had for lunch followed by a lovely picture of our friends, then the obligatory political rant, and perhaps an intriguing question or thought that we’d really like to ponder more. But look, there’s a cat picture! So, even if there was an easy to maintain an “archive”–who would want it? Who wants to know the picture of their dinner last night will be easily retrievable in a few years? Ultimately, Facebook is a messy conglomeration of the mundane and the profound, and giving it a beautiful design won’t change that at all.
