If you use your Facebook as your sort-of online public diary, then the On This Day feature is probably your best friend or your worst enemy. Looking back at what you wrote and posted years ago can be fun or cringe-worthy or both at the same time. It seems like a lot of people really do enjoy taking a trip down Facebook memory lane since more than 90 million people use this feature. According to their research, looking at your past can have a positive impact on a person’s mood and over-all well-being. So now they have enhanced this section and re-launching it as Facebook Memories.
The previous On This Day content that you mostly love is still in this section, including past posts and major life events that occurred on the specific day that you’re looking at. The new Memories will also have a new Friends Made On This Day section, which sometimes you see on your timeline randomly. Now they’re all in just one place. It still has the usual “special” video collage of your best friend memories with them. You will also see seasonal or monthly recaps of your memories that have been compiled into a message or video and just like all the other content in Memories, you have the option to share it or not. There will also be some memories you may have missed within the week.
Not all the memories are pleasant of course. Facebook has gotten complaints before about triggering painful memories by including breakups or deaths in the family in the On This Day section. They are now more careful with these by letting users have more control over what should and should not appear on their Memories feed. You can block out specific dates, people, or date ranges in your preferences. Facebook is also trying to detect potentially negative memories through key words and friend reactions to the post so as not to include it in the feed already.
We do have some requests for the Memories feature that hopefully will be included in future updates. We hope there’s a more intuitive and easier way to search for memories of specific dates. You can do it in a roundabout way on your browser desktop version but it is not that easy. We also hope there’s a way to edit your “friendversary” video or the monthly recaps because sometimes the posts or photos included are lame or not necessarily relevant. Well that second one is just a minor quibble since we probably won’t take time to edit or make our own video of these “special occasions”.
Facebook Memories is still gradually rolling out to users. If you go to facebook.com/memories and still see your On This Day section, it means it’s still not ready for your account yet.
SOURCE: Facebook
