A Century Ago Facebook Was Named The Penny Postcards

Elizabeth Bernstein wrote an August Wall Street Journal column titled “How Facebook Ruins Friendships”. She writes about the way Facebook and Twitter and their kin have reduced the actual time spent for friendship maintenance by using it for an obsessive urge to share the utter minutia of life. We don’t really need to know what all of our friends did for lunch or what their video game scores were… but if we primarily communicate that way, we are not likely to discuss serious or complex matters either.

The author made some very good points about the social network phenomenon that I will have to give some thought to (if I ever get caught up with Facebook and email.)

But I suddenly realized I have a very closely parallel phenomenon documented in my postcard albums. From roughly 1905 until the outbreak of World War I, the western world was swept by a tremendous fashion for exchanging postcards. It was very similar to Facebook – the messages were short and semi-public, and there were competitive urges to gather a lot of pen-pals, (the “friend list”) of the day. Pictures were a large component of the fad – though the appeal of some of the images on the cards escapes me as thoroughly as does the appeal to send Facebook quizzes and farm animals (whatever that is about!)

I went to the first album on the shelf, (happened to be Pre-WWI Holiday Greetings) and found one more common factor. A century ago folks didn’t have enough interesting stuff to fill the communication channel either!

Here is an timeless example:

The sender has picked out an attractive card with a simple clean design. But when we turn it over and look at the message, all Ivy could come up with is "best wishes from friend Ivy". T'was dull, Ivy

Not all cards still have much appeal to me - this religious themed birthday card is not my cup of tea. "A Birthday Themed Message from the BIBLE" with its proverb never got sent. Maybe the purchaser realized it would be near the castor bean oil in popularity.

The next example is another attractive card - with, I guess something timeless in the difficulty in thinking of something to say to the grandparents. The message "To my dear Grandma on her birthday from her loving Martha Ann" was not informative bit probably appreciated anyway.

The card after this one reflects one of the aspects of the Postcard Craze - the exchanges that sometimes got rather out of control... The Thanksgiving card is embossed with a yellow and brow ear of corn. On the back it is marked "2" and starts: "Your cards were new to me and beautiful but my dear you did not owe me five. don't return so many one will do for me. don't mind how many I send - for I forget after I do send them." (and more that is hard to read.) It is one of the longest messages in my abum

But ultimately this whole message is like sending stuff to other Facebook people just because you can, not because you really think the recipient cares. Or like forwarding the email of the 500 lb dog or the albino deer or the work cartoon that you have seen three times because - like the anonymous card writer from a century ago "don't mind how many I send - for I forget after I do send them".

The more things change, the more they stay the same!