Tag Archives: privacy

From Social Spotwelding to Data Stream Contraception

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File this under questionably relevant observations:
I just, for the first time ever, made an online social media connection with someone I’ve not first met offline. I realize many people do this habitually but I am a privacy junkie and am pretty cautious about such things. I must’ve been feeling reckless today (all that caffeine). So I’ve lost my virginity again, but am I a stud or a loose skank? (My feminist friends will no doubt immediately snap to the male/female assumption built into that dichotomy… rant on my friends!)

Anyhow, what struck me was that the connection process felt like spot welding…

First I posted a comment on this guy’s blog thanking him for a nice experience I had.

He emailed back thanking me for thanking him.

I emailed him back once more with a short quip.

Secretly delighted that he’d responded to my humble comment, and enjoying the brief exchange of emails, I then Facebooked him and requested a friendship.

He hit me up through LinkedIn nearly simultaneously.

We both accepted each other’s requests.

I’ve not logged into Twitter yet but my guess is that that weld will be next.

Anyhow, this series of welded connection points set me off to thinking again (never a good sign)…

First, if you’re ‘in’social media, you’re in in a number of places (FB, MS, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. etc.) which is pretty freakin’labor intensive I must say. It seems that all this talk of pervasive connectivity seems to miss the point that it’s through MORE not fewer devices and channels which makes maintenance a real drag on personal bandwidth.

Second, the whole spot welding process had an interesting tempo. If it were an EKG it showed a few small, preliminary spikes (the blog comment and email back) and then a flurry of activity (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter) and will now settle into a stable, if weak, pulse (we’ll both be broadcasting out to our little baseball card collection of friends and  will occasionally see something from one another). Such is the nature of the low maintenance relationships online. It also feels a little like ‘hooking up’in college. A few flirtatious glances, some heavy petting, and the next morning, well, there’s less to say and we’ll probably smile as we pass each other on campus.

Lastly, I am wondering about making a connection with a ‘stranger’this way. Not that this fellow aroused any suspicion in me. On the contrary he seemed very much on the up and up and frankly from his blog, I’m guessing we’d have much to talk about over coffee or whatever.

But let me extend the college hook-up metaphor too far here (as if going from spot welding to a tryst wasn’t an abrupt enough jump)…

Remember the old AIDS-scare idea that when you slept with someone, you slept with everyone they ever slept with? In a way, personal data streams work similarly. In friending someone you expose yourself, even slightly, to all that person’s friends.

The ‘privacy settings’allowed by most of these applications are at best flimsy [insertcheap condom metaphor here].

Now, lest I sound like a conspiracy freak, I’m really not. But, think about running for President. Right now, in 2009, our lovely bipartisan system digs up a lot of dirt on candidates and these tend to be old white dudes without much exposure in the socialsphere (though the Big ‘O’is changing that). Can you imagine how much easier we’re making mudslinging in the future?

No doubt if I continue to connect with people online I will eventually be tied to Al Quaeda, Acorn, a religious cult that poisons acolytes with Kool Aid, gun runners in Congo, a street gang with impossibly violent initiation rights and a porn star.

I will also, of course, be connected with a future mother Theresa, the doctor who finds a cure of cancer, and the selfless hero who walks into a burning building to save a sleeping child.

It’s fascinating. And scary. And the more that I think about it, it’s also pretty much out of my control. If I don’t participate in the socialsphere I am a disconnected Luddite and the world moves forward without me. That’s no good.

If I do connect, I commit to the work involved in maintaining that online ‘self’and I am climbing in bed with everyone I connect to and everyone they’re connected with.

I realize it probably isn’t as extreme as I’m making it above, but you can’t tell me there’s not a LOT to think about as we all feverishly spotweld ourselves together. Spot welds might be weak bonds, but they’re bonds nonetheless.

As that EKG of this spotwelding frenzy of activity settles into a weak pulse, my question is: Is there a sleeper cell of good fortune or big trouble forming out there for me? And if it comes, will the bond be strong enough to take advantage of it, or weak enough that I can get away from it if I want to?

This inquiring mind wants to know.

25 Random Things

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An interesting article in the Times on the ’25 Things’ meme that’s been washing across Facebook and apparently the entire internet.

A few key passages intrigued me.

“Marlon Brando once said, ‘An actor is a fella who, if you aren’t talking about him, isn’t listening,’ ”

and

“I’ve gotten 25 random things notices from people that absolutely fascinated me,” said Mr. Beaver, the actor. “But I’m pretty certain I wouldn’t want to be stuck on a bus with them telling me these things.”

I’m not entirely sure what it all amounts to. (And despite what all the social media ‘experts’claim, they aren’t either). But there appear to be some interesting trends around social media.

There’s an increasing number ‘low maintenance’relationships in our lives where we publish out, and talk about what interests us and hope/assume people are listening. This is in direct contrast to my understanding of friendship growing up, which should start with ‘how are you?’(a.k.a. concern for the friend rather than just an audience for my own broadcasting.)

We like to talk about ourselves. Social media provide a forum/canvas/venue/platform to gratify our inner need to express ourselves – whether through blog banter (i.e. here) or ’25 random things’or ‘video blogging’or publishing our music or photography or whatever. It seems many of us have an artist inside with a need to express him/herself. The motivation for that need is interesting and worth investigating.

It’s also worth noting the word ‘starving’is often attributed to artists (which is why many of us hedge the inner artist with outer employment) and might be applicable to social media companies too if they don’t figure out a few things pretty quick.

We’re not very careful about our privacy. It’s worse among young people who have not yet felt the sting of something coming back to haunt them in a meaningful way (i.e. job ending, marriage ending, etc.). The older we are, and the more life experience we have underneath us, the more cautious we tend to be.

This, incidentally, is not necessarily in alignment with the implied ‘older people don’t use social media as much a younger people’They may. They may just not expose themselves as often by signing up, creating profiles, or commenting in blogs. Which I realize begs the question, ‘Well then are they really using social media.’

Touché Self you have a point.

There is also, of course, the reality that the gainfully employed have less time to fritter away commenting on blogs etc. anyhow.

I am curious to see if the Millennial Generation, as they grow up, continues to be recklessly open because of the media they were born into or if they begin to lock down on their privacy a bit as the wisdom of age sets in and they realize the ramifications.

Or, in a third Eutopian scenario – if culturally we stop firing people or divorcing them when pictures surface of them doing naked keg stands.

Today it seems to be assumed that Millennials are simply more open because they grew up among pervasivie connectivity. But I question whether it’s the technology or the naievity of youth that leads to this openness.

Probably a bit of both if I had to put money down now.

Most people I know said, did or revealed some dumb things when they were young. It just wasn’t recorded on a server to haunt them 10 years later (or for their parents, employers, etc. to stumble upon). It was much easier to party hearty when no one had a camera phone to snap a shot as someone shaved your eyebrows while you were passed out.

Lastly, and more superficially, I wonder just how ‘random’those 25 Random Things are. Is it like resume writing where in coming up with our list, we’re trying to convey a certain message. I certainly did, but I am cautious about my privacy.

This gets to image management, and some interesting articles have been written on our online image and how we control (or lose control) of it.

Again, I don’t have any answers here. Just more and more questions as these little cultural memes fly across my radar. There’s so much changing so fast, it seems premature to do anything but to observe, think and ask.