The Atlantic
Art Direction: Arsh Raziuddin
“For the past 13 years, I’ve given the platform my photos, my videos, my likes, and untold hours of my time. Sifting through it all was amusing and surprising—and weirdly sad,” writes Anna Weiner in “What It's Like to Wallow in Your Own Facebook Data” after finding her way to the social network’s Download Your Information tool. “The data download was a time capsule of sorts, a rare record of time spent digitally. But as I returned to the folder, a familiar sense of dread crept in. If anything, Download Your Information is a consolation prize offered to those of us on the losing end of surveillance capitalism. The folder underscored some of social media’s most unappealing qualities: the distortion of a natural, human experience of time, and an insistence on never quite letting things go.”
August 2018