technoculture203-09

A recent post, Youth and Cyberspace mentioned the increasing concern with the effect of cyberspace and internet human rights violations. It seems everyone is concerned with the youth, but what about adults? With more than half of Facebook users being aged 25 - 44 years of age, and the fastest growing demographic being women over 55, where is the hype about adult safety?

Recently I received an invitation to join a Facebook group called The Yellow Pants Man (YPM) Fan Club, with the comment "look familiar?"

Not only did I laugh for the obvious reasons, but because YPM was in fact my manager. Soon everything about him was revealed, his name (Craig), his work, where he shops, every single indiscretion, sweat patch and embarrassing photo/videos.

Craig lost control over what information about him was available to the public, he, to some degree, has become famous, and there is little he can do about it. So what do we do about this? We embrace it. Social convergence has taken place, and as danah boyd explains, control has therefore been lost. Therefore instead of fighting the change, we should embrace it and educate ourselves around it. Websites such as Digital Tattoo have already started doing this by teaching users about their digital reputations and how to better control these.

If we're educated about our online identity, I feel we can better own ourselves. Craig is YPM- he should embrace it and use it to his benefit. Maybe we should all spend more time and effort constructing our online identities. If we do it first, then nobody else can muscle in on us.