News Notes, Social Media, and the Anxiety of Oversharing
From a 1920 issue of the Swarthmorean. During World War I, the News Notes section of the paper helped keep soldiers connected to their hometown.
“A fine new roof is going on Mr. F. Sauter’s house on Dickinson Avenue.”
That quote comes from the News Notes section of a 1920 issue of the Swarthmorean. Back then, News Notes consisted of seemingly mundane details about the lives of people in Swarthmore. It served as the platform for people to announce things like, “Mr. Victor D. Shirer is the happy possessor of a new Saxon machine.” By reading the News Notes, you could find out that “Miss Helen Leoux who spent the past two weeks Easter vacation at home has returned to Smith College,” and “Miss Nancy Armitage, of South Chester Road, entertained with a bridge party last Saturday afternoon.” The section boasted births of the children and grandchildren of Swarthmore, as well as providing health updates, like that of Mrs. Lawrence Drew, who in 1935 was said to have been “ill with pneumonia in the Taylor Hospital, Ridley Park, for the past two weeks.”
In other words, the “News Notes” section — or the “Personals” as it would be called by the 1940s — looked a bit like a Facebook or Instagram feed does today.
For many of us, social media is unavoidable. It’s an important tool for networking, advertising, and keeping up with friends and family. Social media allows us to break down the wall separating public and private space. So-called influencers make their livings by sharing every aspect of their lives, from photos of every meal to intimate details about relationships and mental health issues. It is often said that social media invented oversharing. However, looking through old issues of the Swarthmorean suggests this isn’t the case.
During World War I, News Notes added a new, particular purpose. A 1920 issue of the Swarthmorean encouraged submissions because the “soldier boys who are receiving this home paper are eagerly looking for news of friends and relatives in the personal columns.” These updates were nothing out of the ordinary, but notes like “The hot chocolate fudge sundaes at Booth’s are very delicious” offered a lifeline for those who were far away.
During World War II, the “Personals” section was full of updates from (or about) the soldiers themselves. Homecomings were announced, as when readers learned that “Capt. Stanton S. Von Grabill stationed at Camp Huntner, N.C., spent the holiday weekend with his family on Cornell Avenue.” The section also featured wartime anecdotes, letting Swarthmore residents know that “Lt. William A. Faragher and his brother Robert V. Faragher, U.S.N.R, recently had an interesting visit together somewhere in England. Lt. Faragher is now with the armed forces in France.”
During both these eras, the newspaper helped Swarthmoreans update their loved ones about day-to-day life. It gave community members a place to get information about soldiers from Swarthmore. In difficult times, this section allowed people to connect and build a community both within and beyond the town.
During the 1960s, the “Personals” section shrank significantly, becoming more like what we see now: a page filled with wedding and birth announcements. There were still occasional anecdotal submissions, like this one from a 1969 issue: “Mr. and Mrs. George L. Shoemaker of Academy Road spent a long weekend at Lake Lure, N.C. While there they met a young man just returned from Vietnam who had met their son, 1st Lt. Alan Shoemaker, now stationed at Dong Tan.” But these kinds of items were becoming rare.
Still, the purpose of the “Personals” section remained the same: it maintained a sense of community through glimpses into individual lives, much as social media does today. Social media blurs the lines between the newsworthy and the personal by providing a space to share individual life updates, but this phenomenon is not as new as we may sometimes think. The “Personals” section in newspapers laid its foundation. How is a tweet or Instagram post much different from these submissions in the local newspaper?
Of course, there are some differences between “News Notes” and a Facebook feed. Social media allows us to post images, sharing a more vivid look at our lives. It offers an immediacy that is a far cry from submitting a note to the editor of the local paper and then waiting for that week’s issue to come out before your news can reach the public. The biggest difference, however, might be that social media allows not only a platform for information, but also interaction. We don’t only read updates from our friends; we comment and react to their posts. Interaction is vital to community, and having conversations in real time about your cousin’s recipe for carrot cake, or your neighbor’s request for television recommendations, is part of building that community. This also means that, as users, we can see an active audience listening to us. There is a special kind of satisfaction that comes with the knowledge of being heard.
While we can’t ignore the dangers of online interaction — such as cyberbullying and the temptation to present our lives in a perfect, inauthentic way — at its best, social media offers a platform to bond and connect. And despite the differences between social media and the “Personals” section in the Swarthmorean, the similarities between them remind us that the need for community and connection is a human constant, not a recent invention.
The connection social media provides is even more important during this uncertain time of social distancing. People are able to share frustrations, tips on how to stay healthy, and advice for keeping themselves occupied. Since we can’t meet in person, social media is helping to foster community networks for mutual aid and assistance. It allows us to send encouragement and hope to those who are struggling, and to maintain bonds with our friends so we don’t feel so alone.
We build community through seemingly mundane snapshots of our lives. So I don’t call my friend’s post-gym selfie, or her long caption about overcoming a recent bout of depression, “oversharing.” I call it inviting other people in.
Elisabeth Miller is a junior at Swarthmore College, double majoring in English and history — which she is now studying from her home in Paxton, Illinois. She is interning at the Swarthmorean this spring, supported by funding from Swarthmore’s English Department and the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility.
