Identity is fluid. As we travel this journey of life, we get imprinted and we forget parts of ourselves. Older people's memories are erased and new memories are formed. As we go through this fluid process without actively knowing it, it can be helpful to pause, spend time with ourselves, and ponder where we started and where we are headed by reliving past conversations.
A Date With Yourself is an interactive experience that lets you ponder the digital footprints you've left behind over the years on social media and encourages you to reflect on how you've changed as a person. Our prototype analyses a user's Facebook Archive to compute how their online persona has evolved over the years.
Our analysis looked for emotions like happiness, surprise, disappointment, and anger. Only messages written by the researcher were analyzed—not those of the friends spoken to. Every message was decontextualized and when knitted together, created moments of the researcher's life where she was unhappy, inspired, or nostalgic, creating a realization of how our interactions with others have changed over time, we can learn about how they have moulded us.