I've had experiences with posting things online and then later regretting it. I've had things end up documented online that I now worry -- a little -- could end up costing me a job one day, or the respect of peers and colleagues. In a very real sense I've grown up in the digital age and learned its pros and cons the hard way.
An article in last week's NYT Magazine explores this in depth. Entitled "The Web Means the End of Forgetting", it explores how people have lost jobs and been haunted by things posted online. If you think the article is too pessimistic, it still certainly reinforces the idea of blogging anonymously and being very careful in who you friend on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc., and what you put there. If you think the article gets it just about right, you'll pull your real name off of these platforms (or close them entirely) and begin to try to clean up your digital history.
Here's a snippet from that article that sums it up:
We’ve known for years that the Web allows for unprecedented voyeurism, exhibitionism and inadvertent indiscretion, but we are only beginning to understand the costs of an age in which so much of what we say, and of what others say about us, goes into our permanent — and public — digital files. The fact that the Internet never seems to forget is threatening, at an almost existential level, our ability to control our identities; to preserve the option of reinventing ourselves and starting anew; to overcome our checkered pasts.Humans deserve the ability to have "supid moments" forgotten and forgiven. We don't deserve to be labeled and solely categorized on the basis of one or two things that make their way online. People used to get to choose the words on their tombstones. Now it seems that tools on the Web -- and the way we use it -- will ensure we're remembered for something we'd rather not be. And maybe even assigned value on that basis. Everybody knows that people are nicer in person, both in the way they treat each other and in the fullness of their character, than they are online. But we all forget that when we find sites like LOLFacebook Moments and laugh at others' misfortunes there.
In this week's version of the magazine, another article, "I Tweet, Therefore I Am" -- looks at the way these social media change our concept of the self and blur the line between who we are versus who we present to others. Here's a snippet from that article that really makes me pause:
“On Twitter or Facebook you’re trying to express something real about who you are,” she explained. “But because you’re also creating something for others’ consumption, you find yourself imagining and playing to your audience more and more. So those moments in which you’re supposed to be showing your true self become a performance. Your psychology becomes a performance.” Referring to “The Lonely Crowd,” the landmark description of the transformation of the American character from inner- to outer-directed, Turkle added, “Twitter is outer-directedness cubed.”We all enjoy feedback, and so are much more likely to put things on Facebook that people will click the "Like" button on. We want to be witty. We want to post photos that we look good in and "un-tag" the ones we don't. We want to have this online self that is the "real" us but at the same time it is exposed to so many people who don't know us that well we can't help but want to put (only) our best face forward. And that's nothing to be ashamed of. But it makes us forget that the most enjoyable part of connecting with others is in sharing the intimacy of bearing your true self. Warty, witless me.
The fun of Twitter and, I suspect, its draw for millions of people, is its infinite potential for connection, as well as its opportunity for self-expression. I enjoy those things myself. But when every thought is externalized, what becomes of insight? When we reflexively post each feeling, what becomes of reflection? When friends become fans, what happens to intimacy? The risk of the performance culture, of the packaged self, is that it erodes the very relationships it purports to create, and alienates us from our own humanity.
We craft and contrive images and words for the consumption of others using social media that we would not use with a friend face-to-face. I have to wonder how much our actual self begins to adjust to this social bias, this sense of others' expectations. And so I think some of us who jumped on Facebook back in 2005 not only lost a sense of what real "friends" are by having 400 on Facebook, but also a sense of our humanity.
I'm really thinking about changing my online self now. I've done it before. Maybe in so doing I'll help save my actual self.
