I'm 42...I will be 43 in a few months. I got on FB around 2007 and logged off my account sometime around 2008 and never went back in. Before I logged off I was friends with a ton of people I went to high school with and honestly hadn't seen 95% of them since graduating high school in the 90's. I moved 10 hours away so I was never around them after graduating.
Well, I decided to log in to just to see if my password worked...and it did.
What I saw was pretty amazing and ultimately depressing. In my feed was tons of photos of people I knew way back when (who now look like their parents!). Of course, lots of photos of their kids they had during this time but mainly I could not get over how people of have aged. Some were almost completely unrecognizable. Unlike people who have been on Facebook regularly and are able to watch people gradually age, I just got the most recent update on everyone and it was really jarring.
I also had 42 friend requests. I also saw that I had an invite to my 20-year reunion that I missed .
It also served as a reminder that the past 25 years have gone by insanely quick. Last night, I went into my basement after logging into my account and had the double whammy of watching some VHS tapes of sports teams I played on in high school.
It was equally depressing watching a young, vibrant version of myself playing basketball and running XC. I felt like I was instantly transported back into that time and remember how important everything seemed and how meaningless it is in retrospect. I also began to wonder what happened to sports rivals I cared deeply about and how their lives turned out.
I'm not sure what this post is about other than time is a weird thing and how nostalgia is immensely powerful. For us older people, it's a real trip to look back at the past and view whatever has been documented. The memories get fuzzier as you age. I will say that although I've had some really fantastic moments as an adult and have no desire to go back in time and re-live things. As a whole, I'm much happier now.
I urge the young people on this board to keep a couple old videos around and watch them after a few good years have passed to put things into perspective a bit and appreciate where you've been and what you experienced.