Facebook has recently unveiled a new feature, called On This Day that resurfaces old posts, photos and status updates that have happened on a given day in the past.
If a user posted some pictures of a party on this day back in 2012, Facebook will send them an alert reminding them of that particular day and how much fun you’ve had at that party.
In order for the feature to be activated, users must subscribe to the service. If they do, then blasts from the past will appear in the news feed. Users can also go to www.facebook.com/onthisday and see all of the historical posts from that particular day.
Facebook users need to know that the On This Day feature will not turn your older posts public. If a user wants their friends to see the posts or make them public, they can share them to their friends, or tweak the visibility preferences and make them completely public.
This is not the first time the social media giant has tinkered with bringing back blasts from the past, at the end of last year it implemented a Year in Review feature that resembled a digital scrapbook with content gathered from the previous year.
The feature, much like the On This Day, had its fair share of criticism, as many users complained that the feature brought back painful memories from the past. One woman was reminded by the death of her daughter in the Year in Review feature and she went on to release a very painful and eye-opening public letter on how Facebook’s feature did more harm them good.
Facebook isn’t the only online company that likes to delight or shock its users with blasts from the past. Timehop is an app that digs up old posts from various social media networks, such as Twitter, Instagram and even Facebook.
Right now, On This Day is slowly being rolled out, which means that it is not yet available all over the world. There is no word just yet, if the feature will be a permanent one.