I first learned about social media on a run.
It was a spring in 2005. My college track team had finished a workout and we were cooling down, jogging around the lake on campus. It was afternoon and the sultry heat of summer was edging into the days. We were bantering, vibing on the good energy of a completed workout.
Amid the chatter, a senior on the team called out, “Have y’all head about this thing called ‘The Facebook’?”
The world was a bit smaller than it is now. And so was Facebook. He described the new website as a profile network that only college students could join. You created an account, added some basic info, uploaded a photo of yourself, and connected with friends on campus. By summer, I’d made an account, although I spent several days pondering what running photo to use for my profile picture.
Facebook was both radically different and reassuringly familiar. It blended the social aspects of AOL Instant Messenger, which defined digital life for fin de siècle high schoolers li…
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