Social Media Histories
Creating a place for anyone, from children to policymakers, to browse the history of social media app features.
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About the Project
This project came to life under Dr. Sarita Schoenebeck, a professor at the University of Michigan. She wanted a place on the web where anyone could view the progression of social media platforms. Children could use it for entertainment, while policymakers and researchers could use it to document how features have changed and why that might affect users. Due to the large target population, the website had to be simple enough for anyone to jump right in, but expansive enough to be properly cited. As the website is not live yet, below are some clips and snapshots from the dev site.
Archive
The core of the website is the archive page. This is where users can search through all of the data we collected, with features dating back to 2010. Users can use the search in the top right to find features by keyword or if they're unsure what exactly they're looking for they can filter by platforms, pages, and years. They can also sort from oldest to newest or vice-versa.
Feature Cards
Features are distinguished by platform, year, and type. Above, you can see the messages feature on facebook in 2024 when they introduced Meta AI. When clicked, the feature card expands to display more information. The user can download the image/gif, cite, or share.
Search
From anywhere on the website, users can quickly find features or platforms that they have in mind. As results load in, there is a loading state which tells the user that their query is processing.
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Behind the Site
The website is built using Next.js, Tailwind CSS, and TypeScript for the frontend. All of the text data is stored using AWS' Relational Database Service with PostgreSQL, while image/gif files are stored in an S3 bucket and served through CloudFront.