The end of privacy
In Emily Nussbaum’s article, “Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy: The Greatest Generational Gap Since Rock and Roll”, she discusses how the role of social media and social networking sites on the Internet are changing our current culture.
“Kids today. They have no sense of shame. They have no sense of privacy. They are show-offs, fame whores, pornographic little loons who post their diaries, their phone numbers, their stupid poetry—for God’s sake, their dirty photos!—online. They have virtual friends instead of real ones. They talk in illiterate instant messages. They are interested only in attention—and yet they have zero attention span, flitting like hummingbirds from one virtual stage to another.”
Taken from Nussbaum’s article, this sentiment is echoed by many adults in today’s day and age. However, how much of it is actually true and how much if it is ignorance or as Carl Shirky, a professor at NYU believes, how much of it is a bit of jealousy that most over 40 were never given the option or ability to use the Internet for recreational use and of course was not given the opportunity to grow up using the Internet.
One thing that can not be argued however is the fact that the Internet, and social media and networking sites in particular, are changing the way privacy is viewed. On the Internet now everyone, by choice mostly, has most of his or her lives “publicized” for the world to see. We have our Facebooks, Twitters, Tumblrs ect.and on each of them we have almost every detail of our private lives. On Facebook especially we are encouraged to detail all of our likes/dislikes, post about our interests.
Another interesting topic brought about in the article is the fact that the Internet is a permanent record of all of these actions. Forever ingrained on servers and hard drives everywhere is going to be records of the pictures posts and profiles we have up now. I always thought it was an interesting thought to think about how our kids may look at our facebooks when we are older. How will they feel or better yet how will we feel when our kids are looking at pictures of us drinking and partying. This is something that has never happen in history; it is truly a new cultural revolution.
It is also interesting how in society with everything put online to look at why we have decided to shed privacy and why we are willing to put everything out there for anyone to see. On social media sites, the more public your profile is, the more public your posts are, the “better” they are. People post things on facebook just to get likes or just so everyone can see them. This is the age we are living in and the direction we are heading. Our lives are being put out for the public to view, criticize or even “like”. Privacy is dead.
