Not taking yourself too seriously is an aspect of life that I’ve found incredibly important, especially at Northwestern, where it is so tempting to compare yourself to those who surround you. I was reminded of this fact today in my attempt to procrastinate writing a paper, when I began going through my old posts on Facebook.

Despite how silly it sounds, looking back through social media posts is beneficial. Yes, it might be embarrassing, but it is possible to learn from it.

Personal growth is the pinnacle of life, and old social media posts can serve as a benchmark to see how much you have grown. Timehop is an interesting new application for mobile devices that allows one to very easily look at old social media posts from specific days. It can be incredibly cringe-worthy, but it does allow comparison between your old self and your current self.

One common theme is that old posts are often superficial. I find that mine were geared toward things that people generally don’t post on social media – grades, plans and other personal information that other people wouldn’t really care to read about. I always find myself wondering why people post certain things on Facebook, but looking back at my old updates, I realize I once did as well. It’s fun to see that my life has evolved from posting about my grade on an English paper or being sick on a school night to having a real job and attending college. Five or six years ago, I never would have imagined my life to be where it is now. Social media allows a tangible and readily-available comparison.

In the age of Millennials, technology seems to define current culture. We as a society are said to be robotizing ourselves by becoming slaves to mobile devices, computers and tablets. As technology evolves and changes, so do we, and social media is conveniently there to chronicle this development. A concrete example of this is the old Facebook status system, in which we were prompted to type our updates in third person. It provided a more direct and acceptable way of saying how we were feeling. It then changed to being just a blank text box, where we could post anything as we pleased – making statuses much less personal than before. Now, we are given the option to add how we are feeling at the end of our updates. As the system changes it is interesting to see how we respond and adapt to such shifts in technology. Social media archives our old posts and allows us to physically see how we change in response to these fluctuations.

So, Facebook, keep doing what you’re doing. It may be devastatingly embarrassing to see old pictures or videos pop up on your newsfeed, but no matter how incriminating this piece of media is, remember that you can justify your embarrassment by looking at it objectively and learning from it. It is a great method of seeing how far things have come, and how much everything has changed in just a few years. It is evidence of the undeniable fact that life moves so fast that it’s hard to stop for a second and take it all in – but your old posts and pictures can be your own personal freeze-frame. Take a look at them, reminisce, stop time for a moment and remember what life was like back in the glory days when all you had to worry about was high school and petty drama. It’s a nice break from the reality of midterms, polar vortexes and Ebola scares.

Trevor Stoimenoff is a Weinberg junior. He can be reached at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected].