Publicized Living with Social Media

[applejacks]

I've been thinking quite a bit about how social media can now publicize our lives, and how this will affect our actions in the future. As I sit here and drink my coffee, I've already seen so many examples of actions caught and publicized that might not have had as broad of an audience if the technology for social media hadn't enabled it Example: The guy that bragged about cheating on his wife, and the photo & story that went viral.

I've gone through my wild stages, so this doesn't really intimidate me, but I worry about the next generation. Will they have a chance to go through their wilder stages of life without building a permanent, public record of their actions? SHOULD they have that opportunity? I think about things that I've done that I wouldn't necessarily want caught and shared, but I'm not so sure that I would have done them otherwise. Yet I'm thankful that I was able to live my life then without fear of social media publication.

Will this stifle our living in the future? Will it make us think more carefully before acting? Will this generate more focus on negativity and blackmail?

How do you think this will play out?

[InvisibleJim]

It's generally not a good idea to get too involved with social media. For example, I severely restrict my facebook friends group by continually wittling it down and only use linkedin for business purposes only.

[InvisibleHim]

With the recent NSA issue and the way corporations are cooperating, google glasses, and any mobile device that processes and stores data, I think the future of individual privacy will practically be nonexistent.


I was going to use the word fragile, but this is the current state.

Will this generate more focus on negativity and blackmail?

Blackmail is the threat of bringing forth sensitive information for gainful means. With the dissolving of privacy, and the expansion of online media and mobile recording devices, that will either become extremely easy or moot, as information will likely be owned by a third party( cherry-on-top: thirdparty is the blackmailer!).


Oh, I also expect paranoia, anxiety, and medication to rise!

[applejacks]

The real danger is anyone special (which we all are in our own unique ways) will feel dispassionately and depressingly average.

This is an interesting point that I hadn't thought about, but you might be right.

Perfect example: I graduated high school in a class of 640 kids, and our school was one of 6 just like it in the county. I quite honestly grew up thinking I had very little talent, since I compared myself to so many others. So I can definitely see this point.

Interesting. Thanks for your thoughts!

[squirreltual]

Eliza's 2nd birthday pics. Scott is playing candy crush. Kipple. Everywhere. Increasing exponentially. Eventually the mind enters its own state of kipplization.

I think blackmail is just a checkpoint on a path to a much more insidious future. Humans will become increasingly narcissistic gloop. I see a lot of young people who believe that image outweighs substance, people who value watching over doing; young adults increasingly lacking in social skills and attention spans. I know that is a more general point, but I feel like we have evolved to live in an environment that no longer exists and it will kick us in the arse - and that social media is just another catalyst for that. Bah humbug.

I think anyone that documents anything that could cause them problems later, on the internet, must be ignorant or stupid or too naive to be using social media in the first place.

[mu4]

1. Don't do anything bad
2. Cover your tracks
3. Profitttttt $$$$$$$$$$$$$

Also, nobody is really all that special, people are unique but also eventual worm food.

When the printing press was invented, people criticized it for all the harm it would o to the world.

Every-time a new medium or technology which facilitates communication comes into being people complain, "it is going to destroy everything, our way of life, our care for our fellow people!!!!!!"

Except a lot of people don't really care for others, as seen in the history of man and it's callous disregard for each other, but still there's good people and brilliant people and special people.

I think a lot of people don't want to be unique, creative or individualistic, they just want to survive, and these people aren't bad, they just people.

Social media is just a tool, people will use it to the limits of it's capabilities, such as rebels identifying military targets in Libya on Twitter for NATO to bomb. Others will take a video of a cop beating someone and it'll go viral, wait Rodney King was before the widespread adoption of the internet... need a different example.... um...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sl_RknL9G-Q

Universe casts Meteor X on Russia...

I'm only worried that narrow minded people who control the world today will make the world very small for people in the future. They will do this because they fear their obsolete way of life will disappear, AND GOOD RIDDANCE!

[anndelise]

Will this stifle our living in the future? Will it make us think more carefully before acting? Will this generate more focus on negativity and blackmail?

How do you think this will play out?

Recently on facebook a friend shared a video that was taken by a cell phone on a subway in NY. Two adult men were cursing at, threatening to rape, and later threatening to kill some gay teens that had just come from the pride parade. An attorney happened to be present and caught much of it on her cell phone. When the men discovered their actions were being taped, they also threatened the woman, and one even tried beating on her. She has bruises from the attack. One of the men was quite passionate, the other was stone cold. He was the one who calmly walked up to the cell phone lady and started beating on her. The passionate man had also reached out and wrapped his hands around one young female's throat. She wasn't so innocent though, as while some passengers were trying to cool the men down, she was further instigating with her words. The video also showed some fellow passengers pulling each of the men off, and even blocking the two men off into an exit so the men had nowhere else to go but off the subway.

This video was placed on facebook and shared in an attempt to discover the identity of these two men so that police could question them, and possibly charges be pressed.

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Another video that I saw shared on facebook this past week was of a couple of citizens cell phone taping a police bust. One who was taping it was with his dog, another group taping were including the man and dog in their tape, this is the one that was shared. In this video, the man and dog were on the corner, well away from the proceedings, and not doing anything that could be construed as interfering. The dog was calmly sniffing, sitting, waiting...bored. At some point, some officers gathered together, pointing at the people videotaping, and eventually an officer turned and started walking towards them. I think the dog guy lifted his voice to ask something of the officer (there was distance between them). My memory is a bit hazy on these details, but i think the dog guy said a couple of things, the officer turned back to his companions. Then the dog guy took his dog and placed it into the backseat of his car. The dog was a rottie, the windows were mostly down. I think the guy thought the dog would be ok in there for the chat the officer seemed to want. The dog was calm and bored still. As the guy was finishing putting his dog in the car, more than the first cop walked over to him. The guy met them part way. They surrounded him. He put his hands on his head, the proceeded to arrest him. One cop pulled out some kind of rifle and had it like some kind of warning. Now, this guy was calm, doing as told, but yes, was asking questions, probably why was he being arrested. He was not resisting at all. The cops continued puffing themselves up with aggressive stances. The dog saw this, got nervous for his owner, and jumped out of the car and nervously walked over towards his owner, seeking reassurance from the owner. The owner tried telling the dog to go, but couldn't use hand signals nor do anything to reassure the dog. The police pulled out their guns and began aggressively push the dog away. One guy reached out to grab the dog, the dog ducked and bit the cops hand, and barked at them. The cop who had been stupid to try grabbing the dog like that shot the dog...in the head...multiple times. It took a while for the dog to die. Meanwhile the wailing owner can't be there to soothe the dog in those last moments.

This video was heart breaking to see.
And it was obviously the fault of the officers that the incident had escalated like it had.

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Yes, publicized living with social media will have its stupid people doing and saying stupid things on it. Some things we do/say might come back to haunt us. But it also has its benefits. One of them being that the public has more access to justice in the form of concrete proof rather than just memory and words. When it comes to word against word, these videos provide concrete proof.

It also allows for actions and behaviors to be analyzed. The dog shooting video would be good if used to help train police officers how to behave around dogs rather than escalating benign situations. The after-Pride Parade video would be good if used to analyze how attitudes are changing..or not changing. It is also inspirational to see the fellow passengers, strangers, standing up to bullies.

All of these kinds of videos can offer up role models. People who are unsure whether to say/do something can find inspiration for yes...or even no. I'm not just talking about standing up to bullies, but also whether it would be smart to brag about cheating to a video cam..or whether that would be a rather stupid thing to do.

These kinds of videos also offer insight into people's lives that we don't normally get. It can be used to help us understand other people better...especially those from other countries...as well as ourselves.

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A little while back on facebook were some links to some pictures that had been taken in Turkey, I think, of a peaceful protest that had been escalated by the turkish government to the point of multiple deaths. It was horrific to see the pics in timeline order. This incident had not recieved tv coverage because the turkish government was trying to keep the incident silenced. But people that were present had used their cell phones to take pics, video clips, and contact other people...live. The government couldn't successfully keep it hushed becuase citizens had access to the world.

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I don't watch tv. I don't have a news channel to even watch. And i don't use the internet news sites much unless I hear someone talking or see them writing about something. Facebook allows me to see more of what is going on in the world than I would normally access on my own. (And i don't even particularly like facebook! But I've developed the habit of using it.)

If it wasn't for the publicized living via social media...I'm not sure I would have fully believed the extent of aggression and escalation of which these three videos/pics portrayed. I hear about such things, but I always wonder what else was going on, I never feel as if I get the whole story. But seeing the videos and pics...I get to see a lot more of what all was going on. The story is much fuller.

[squark]

Once upon a time, people used to gather together to read excerpts to each other from their diaries. Journals were generally a means of recording lives, events and happenings for contemporary and later readers rather than for private scribblings. There has never been a time in history when humans weren't interested in sharing with others. And gossip, especially in smaller communities has always been a form of currency. If a person had good gossip to share, they could buy favors and influence with others. What current social media does though is put everyone into the same small town. Nosy old Mrs. McGregor living next door, is now living next door to you no matter where you go.

I've moved a lot in my life, and I remember one thing that could be nice about moving when I was a kid was starting fresh. Nobody knew me, so they couldn't judge me based on anything in my past, and they couldn't get reports from anyone else about me to judge me, because I was just as new to everyone in the surrounding area. When you put your life up on facebook you take every place you've lived with you wherever you go, and so you never leave anyplace behind.

I have always hated living in small towns and feeling watched and talked about everywhere I went, but a lot of people live in them voluntarily. A lot of people like the feel of the community around them, and it gives them some kind of comfort, security or a sense of importance. So, now everyone who wants to can have that same experience no matter where they live.

 

That small-town thing of everyone knowing everyone else's business is something separate from gathering metadata and the privacy concerns with the NSA etc that someone mentioned. You don't need to be on any social media for that, although being on facebook etc helps create much more data on you. The NSA, google, etc are not sitting around watching you eat breakfast and following your every move because they're not interested in you as a person. It's not personal. They just want to categorize you. It's an elaborate profiling system. Bg posted a little thing once that was supposed to determine your personality based on your facebook likes. It didn't work well, and wasn't very sophisticated, but gathering metadata is more along those lines than actually watching you. Take all the surveys people answer, all the likes they share, all the sites they visit, how many times they log into their emails, who their contacts are and who their family members are, what groups they're involved with, what political parties or candidates they support, what products they buy, and you can form such a complete picture of that person as to be able to predict what they'll do, how to best influence them, in what ways you can target them, and who they're likely to influence in turn, or turn to for help. But, they're not really interested in that person alone per se. If they need that information, it's there, at the ready, and dynamically generating personal content to influence that person how you'd like is hardly far away, and already in innocuous seeming products and services (ie. customers who bought this product also bought. . . or people who have viewed items on your wishlist are also interested in. . .or ads that change based on your web surfing and searching history)

You're giving out information all the time without realizing it, and it's being gobbled up and stored away, not because anyone is interested in you as an individual, but because it's useful in a large scale. You can categorize and sort people by their habits and data, their interests and even their family ties. You can bend whole groups of people towards a particular end, you can flag potential troublemakers, you can see the best way to get to any individual should you need to personally influence them. Information is power, and it's not because anyone particularly cares that you eat cornflakes for breakfast every morning, but because maybe it says something else about you, something they can use later. And maybe it helps to clarify your profile, to categorize you more neatly with the millions of other people in your same category. You create a pattern, a digital footprint that can be analyzed and stored and compared to other patterns and every action you take online contributes more information to that database. You are a dataset, and all they need is the correct algorithm to make that data flow where they want it to. It's a big deal, far more insidious than just being watched from a distance, and far less personal than many people imagine.

[squark]

Ugh. I've told you already there's a reason you're on ignore MD, and when I got notification that I was quoted, wish I hadn't viewed your post. But, I did. Damn it, I did view it. You're arguing with the air, as you certainly didn't understand what I was saying. I wasn't trying to calm anything down. I was pointing out the real uses of collecting data and why it's actually important.

And for you to assume that I was supporting the collection of personal data in any way just further demonstrates your complete and utter cluelessness. Why is it that someone so ignorant on so many issues thinks he he knows so much, and lectures others so often, I don't know.

[Absurd]

Yeah, even ****** allowed German people to own guns, so they won't shoot him, only themselves. I don't know what's your problem, as well, William...

[Shazaam]

Then again, everyone thought Edgar Allen Poe was a drunkard, and everyone disapproved of him socially. That didn't stop him from writing masterpieces.

lol you're such an e3 american sometimes.

A lot of people aren't as turned on by celebrities or other people's accomplishments than you would think. Many of them could care less and aren't motivated at all. You're talking like some smarmy sociopathic self help brochure. Why do you do that? Did you ever think that you might actually be very wrong in the things you say? I'm just curious. Like that Oprah-y "Everybody picked on James (random name no forum relation) in high school for being a worthless loser but now he is SOMEBODY!" I mean the tone is so unemotional and crude it practically trolls itself. Fame is slippery and chaotic, not something you should be using to encourage people cheesily on.