Bryan Benilous, a historical newspaper specialist at the digital-archive company Proquest, found a Boston Daily Globe article from August 24, 1902, “Face Book The New Fad." It was a party game where revelers sketch cartoony characters for fun.
He thinks it's like writing on friend's wall in a much less tech-savvy way. Drawing games and parlor games were popular activities, as well as keeping guestbooks, where people often scribbled notes and jokes, much like leaving a comment on Facebook.
In addition to the article, they found what seems to be an emoticon in an Abe Lincoln speech, a 1942 Washington Post article titled “Think Before You Twitter” about gossiping, and an article from 1903 talking about the first "pocket telephone."
