Lifestreaming requires the digital instantiation of formerly ephemeral pieces of information. For instance, what Jim had for breakfast is ephemeral. There is no permanent record of his cornflakes. Few of us remember what we ate for breakfast last week, let alone years ago. But once Jim digitizes this information by tweeting about it, posting a picture of his cereal bowl, or carefully tracking his caloric intake, his breakfast is written into (digital) being. Similarly, defining a relationship as "it's complicated" on Facebook categorizes and codifies what may be a complex interpersonal interaction. The act of classification is political and ideological. The social digitization encouraged by social media converts all sorts of nuanced interactions into cut-and-dried bits and bytes.

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, loc. 546