I am one of those people on my private Facebook page who shares life…good and bad. I believe in being honest with who I am. If I’m having a bad day, you’ll know it. If it’s great, you’ll know that too. Alot of my friends are like that as well. Some may think I overshare, but honestly, anything I post on there would be something I would say or share with my friends or family face to face. I think of Facebook as a way to communicate, as well as a way to place events in my life in a timeline.
Enter in Timehop. The app that works in conjunction with Facebook that most of my friends now use. Facebook has now started with the “you have memories to share” thing as well, but I think Timehop does it much better.
If you don’t know what Timehop is, it is an app that pulls some of your status updates from the past 5 years and gives them to you every day. You can share them if you want, or just peruse them that day. Once the day is gone, the app moves to the next day.
So why do I have a love/hate relationship with Timehop?
I love Timehop because it makes me remember events or photos I have posted about that I might have forgotten. This is particularly true when it comes to my children. I have often posted things that they have said and then as the year or years have rolled by, I’ve forgotten them. Here’s one example:
Or this one…
Or probably the best one yet! I completely forgot what she used to do as a three year old, but thanks to Timehop, I now remember…
Those types of posts along with pictures that I haven’t looked at in awhile are what make me love Timehop. It’s impossible to remember every detail of my childrens’ lives, but when combined with Facebook, this app helps me remember some of them and for that I am grateful.
So where does the hate part of the relationship come in?
Maybe it’s not really hate, because my dad always told us never to hate. We could dislike something intensely, but not hate. Somehow stating that I have a love/dislike intensely relationship with Timehop doesn’t quite sound correct!
While it’s great to be reminded of the wonderful things, it’s not so great when I am reminded of the harder days as a parent dealing with toddler behavior or the days that were truly life-changing and sad.
This was one of those tough parenting days. We all have them.
Or when you wish you could just sleep in late one time out of the year…
Or the hard days when Timehop reminds you that you posted something about someone you love that has died. These posts are especially hard to see again.
Or the one Timehop shared just as I was writing this post. It reminded me of the day we found out my mom’s diagnosis. Praising God for the almost 2 years we had with her, but wishing things had been different and she was still here.
I’ve also noticed something interesting and it’s not just me that feels this way. I have spoken to different people and they feel the same about it. I wonder if you get the same kind of pangs when you pull up your Timehop each morning…
[Tweet “Does it bother you when Timehop has no pics for the day? #timehop #lovehate”]
Or worse yet it says, “4 years ago…no activities found”.
I know I love seeing the memories for the most part and when there are no pictures, it does give me a pang of sadness for a moment. When it says no activities, I often wonder whether their algorithm they use is wrong since I am on social media every day. How can that be that I posted not one status? Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I was doing something fun and not posting that day, but that’s pretty unlike me!
If you are one of those people like me who uses Timehop, do you love it, hate it, or do you have similar feelings like me? I’d love to hear your thoughts on it!
