digitally numb

The Value of Over-Sharing?

This New York Times article about the “too much information movement” will probably alarm a lot of people (at least those that don’t follow every new social media trend). But I have good news. Those that avoid these services have nothing to fear when it comes to their privacy (for the most part) and those that choose to participate are doing so because they truly believe the benefits outweigh the privacy risks. Over-sharing is not a new phenomenon, but what was missing was a medium to convey the information efficiently to potential receivers. One can argue that the Internet and social networking is leading people to become more comfortable with the idea of broadcasting their lives to friends, family and strangers (and that’s a bad thing). However, without users that are willing participate in this mass information sharing explosion, there would be no YouTube, Facebook, Twitter. Foursquare or Blippy. The question is, why do some people choose to willingly over-share, in spite of the obvious risks involved (limited control over how long such information is retained, who it is shared with and how it is accessed and used)? I think the answer is simple. The one’s that do so have to and need to, because they desperately want to be heard.

In this globalized world which is accelerating the flattening of social and cultural identity, the individual has to struggle to stand out in the crowd of civilization. Social media changes that (at least conceptually). The over-sharers can now be themselves and boast about their generic taste in music, their love for romance novels, their weekend bar-hopping adventures and any other minute piece of information about who they are and what it is that makes each one of them a unique individual. Who cares about people whining about the loss of privacy? They now have control over their personal identity and the way the are perceived by others in the world. They may not be that unique but it must feel good to be handed the control panel of your own personal broadcast channel — your own powerful personal PR machine.

As Freud put it in the book Civilizations and Its Discontents, every individual is driven by an instinctual need to experience pleasure and avoid pain. We collaborate with others to form civilizations because it helps this basic selfish drive. When we collaborate with others we have a greater chance of survival and ways to avoid pain caused by external factors (natural elements, other human beings, etc.).  However, the dependence created by civilization comes with its drawbacks. Civilization imposes limits on the individual in the interest of the common good. It imposes norms and laws that restrict the uninhibited individual pursuit of happiness. Therefore, although we rely on civilization to protect ourselves from the hostile world we live in; civilization itself causes displeasure because it restricts our individuality and our instincts. It’s a dilemma that even Freud didn’t have good answers too, but he did a great job of clearly articulating the problem.

What does this have to do with over-sharing on the Internet? Think of over-sharing as a little win for the individual — a win against having to consume mass media and be another faceless and passive consumer. The Internet and social media gives you an instant audience to nourish your sense of self, to carve your own identity, to be heard (even if you have nothing important to say) and be in control of how the world at large perceives you. If over-sharing makes millions of people feel better about themselves, if it helps them be heard and form new social connections with like minded over-sharers, if it helps them achieve pleasure an avoid pain, why worry?  Why should anyone live unheard and unnoticed? Of course the providers of such services need to offer users with the ability to control the information sharing and not suffer data breaches. But why should we stop anyone from having a voice? Further, when over-sharing becomes the norm in society, many will chose to break away from the herd mentality and maintain their sense of self by curtailing their information sharing habits. It’s an endless cycle and we will do what we have to to meet our fundamental need for individuality. Because without a personal identity, what is the point of privacy? As the saying goes, “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” Admit it, you don’t want to be that tree.

Related Post: Managing the privacy impact of Internet microcelebrity culture

Managing the privacy impact of Internet microcelebrity culture

You’ve probably heard the news by now. The Internet (and social media specifically) is making us all attention-seeking wannabe celebrities, killing privacy and giving birth to an age of voyeurism. But how did it come to this?

We sowed the seeds that are leading us to this inevitable end thousands of years go — by developing visual and oral communications mediums such as signs, language and writing (the earliest mediums that provided humans with the means to communicate by storing and transmitting memory and speech outside our bodies). In ancient times, you had to be a king, saint or God to achieve celebrity status, but media and communication technologies, starting with print and later film, radio and TV changed everything by fueling the process of democratization of celebrity culture. Mass media distribution enabled celebrities to emerge amongst numerous sectors of society such as politics, science, academia, sports, etc. Then the Internet arrived and not only did it make the lives of existing celebrities more accessible to the masses, but it also turned passive consumers of media into active producers. Tools like blogging, podcasting, digital photo and video sharing handed out the keys to a new media universe for free and celebrity status became anyone’s for the taking.

In many ways, the allure of celebrity appeals to our basic human need to have a voice, connect with others, be recognized and influence the world around us. Further, the Internet created only one barrier to entry into this new participatory culture — our willingness to disclose our opinions, talents, interests, affiliations, whereabouts and other identifiable information about our private and social lives for the chance to be heard. As Marshall McLuhan accurately pointed out; “Publication is a self-invasion of privacy” and as Internet technologies for creating and transmitting media flourish, mobile devices become the primary communication tool and geo-location services; facial tagging and augmented reality technologies become ubiquitous, no one will truly be able to escape this phenomenon. The outcome will be a world in which everyone is recognized, well-known and observed by groups of people on a daily basis (either due to our direct actions or those of others).

The subsequent broadening of our social spheres and the associated loss of anonymity may lead to benefits such as honesty, transparency, collaboration and altruism, but it will not come without its negative consequences. We will all struggle to manage our reputation by not only curtailing certain thoughts and actions, but also by paying for reputation management services to help us enforce limits on what others say and share about us. Some will embrace the attention and even try to profit from it, thereby blurring the line between self-expression and commercial behavior. Disputes over intellectual property ownership of media created and collated by the new breed of consumers-turned-producers, as well as claims of deceptive and unfair advertising practices will inevitably follow. In addition, concerns over the mining of our disclosed opinions, talents, interests, affiliations and whereabouts for advertising purposes will not abate, as marketers struggle to combat the rising tide of attention scarcity and audience fragmentation.

Assessing the potential socioeconomic consequences of the democratization of celebrity culture is important, but we must not sidestep the core dilemma between the human need to be heard and our value for privacy. Although certain basic concepts of privacy are shared amongst individuals, cultures and nations, we cannot deny that the notions of privacy vary and continue to evolve as personal and social norms and attitudes change. Hence, we should work to ensure that all media and communication technologies that empower us to create and share also enable us to control the flow of information. This will help us choose our own desired levels of privacy, rather than having multiple confusing standards imposed upon us.

Ideally, we all need a simple volume knob for every piece of data we choose to share, where each level on the knob represents a different level of trust in our social sphere. For example Level 0 would represent the individual itself and every subsequent level could represent a customizable group that is lower in the individual’s trust hierarchy. The levels could range from family, close friends, extended relatives, casual acquaintances, colleagues, trusted brands, unknown followers and then everyone else. If new media and communication technologies allowed us to easily define and implement our own personal codes of privacy in this manner, it would go a long way in helping us prepare for some of the challenges that lie ahead.

In a essay about the death of mainstream pop music, the Scottish artist and writer Nick Currie (a.k.a. Momus) wrote the words “In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen people”. This quote is not only an intelligent play on the famous Andy Warhol quote, “In the future everyone will be world-famous for fifteen minutes”, but is also an accurate reflection of current trends.  If the democratization of celebrity culture and the social media explosion are indeed redefining our notions of privacy, we need simple tools to help us balance our needs and values. The power to be heard should be accompanied by the power to control our voices; as we all become Internet microcelebrities, to a potential audience of millions, thousands, hundreds or even fifteen people.

Social media, privacy and morality – will the Internet make us better or worse?

A lot has been written and said about some of the negative impacts of social media that range from privacy concerns to harming children’s brains. These concerns may be valid (I have mine too), but the voluntary loss of privacy that comes with being active on Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare may have some unintended benefits. As blasphemous as this may sound, if you’re really looking for a silver lining here, there is one to be found.

Firstly, no one can deny that the primary driver behind social media participation is still largely our own selfish need to be heard and connected. Aren’t we all just self-promoting narcissists trying to build our corporate or personal brands and the only ‘social’ aspect we care about is the attention we’re getting from others? This is probably true, but the success of social media itself seems to contradict this assumption and is evidence that we all are not only satisfying our selfish needs, but are also providing some value to each others lives. If our primary motivations are purely selfish in nature, how is this even possible?

I think it has a lot to do with morality and moral intuitions. As psychologist Jonathan Haidt put it so well, “just as our tongues guide us to good foods and away from bad foods, our minds guide us to good people, away from bad people”*. In other words, it may be possible that the reason we thrive (in spite of ourselves) in these new social environments is because we tend to adopt moralistic behaviors that curtail our selfish motivations. I’m no psychologist, but with the exception of a few celebrities, long term social media popularity and success is not only dependent on being interesting and engaging, but also on following some basic moral principles such as not harming others and treating people with respect. In some ways, the more moral you are in your social media behavior, the more likely that you will be heard, appreciated and recognized in today’s crowded social media landscape. Let’s take Twitter as an example — it’s a service that seems to have an unwritten moral code ingrained in concepts like Retweets and the Follow Friday hashtag. It’s these simple manifestations of reciprocal altruism in social media that has in a small way, helped services like Twitter grow at such exponential rates.

Coming back to the issue of privacy, as we make the conscious choice to share more, we as a society are likely to grow more comfortable with blurring the boundaries between our public and private lives. Consequently, we will cope by growing more conscious about how the thoughts we share and actions we perform, whether offline or online may be stored and broadcasted for consumption by others. Managing our own personal brand and reputation will become critical. This combined with the fact that we will form new emotional attachments and connections online, may end up bringing about out a lot of good in us. When you know you’re being watched by people that trust you, aren’t you more likely to be more honest, transparent and respectful? Further, the broadening of our social spheres will be a great incentive for us to collaborate, cooperate and display altruistic behavior with more people than ever before. How can that be a bad thing?

I’m not implying that privacy becomes a non-issue because we will all behave nicely to save face. There’s still a lot of work to be done around establishing the right balance that meets individual notions of privacy. However, I’m just hoping our moral compass continues to play an important role in guiding us through this challenging journey.

You are what you tweet — be discreet!

The digital revolution has ushered in the apocalypse for some and a rebirth for others (depending on which side of the old/new media fence you happen to sit on). The old media ways have been left behind to choke on the dust kicked by empowered consumers, as they sprint ahead and embrace the ever-expanding array of new media consumption mediums and channels. Yes, this is great — this is progress. Not only do we have access to so much more information, but it’s also mostly free and accessible everywhere. Most importantly, now we can all contribute to this new media universe – blog, tweet, upload, tag, share and become your own little media empire!

Not unlike what the origin of language and then writing did to human beings thousands of years ago –- the power to transcribe thoughts and communicate instantaneously, across geographic and cultural boundaries in this manner is leading to huge personal and social transformations. The difference is, in the offline world, we could expect a lot of what we said and shared during our lifetime (for better or worse) to be often counterbalanced by the problem of inadequate data storage & retrieval capabilities (the limitations of human memory). In the pre-Internet days of the offline world, we were mostly reliant on every social interaction, new friendship or acquaintance, good or bad deed, and every moment spent communicating through various mediums during our lifetimes to eventually add up to shaping how others perceived us. Unless you were a published author or generally someone famous, or influential with access to mass media communication channels, you were limited to gradually and painstakingly building your personal legacies within your social circles over your lifetime. As we all know, that’s no longer the case anymore, because we’re all media producers now and we’re all are beginning to shift our offline lives online. You can share what you’re thinking, doing, eating, buying, your opinions on anything and everything online –- not just with words, but along with images, moving pictures and sound. All this in an environment with infinite storage and retrieval capabilities

With every tweet, status update, blog post, photo or video uploaded, you’re essentially leaving bits and bytes of yourself (some of which you may never be able to take back). Just because you forgot about what you tweeted yesterday and just because tomorrow you may abandon Twitter or Facebook for the next shiny new Internet toy, doesn’t mean what you’ve shared is forgotten. As search technologies keep evolving, there’s going to be very few places for the information you’ve shared, and consequently for you to hide. This is not meant to scare you or convince you that social media and over sharing should be curtailed (who am I to say that?). Create and share by all means –- just remember that with this new found power, you’re not only interacting, making friends, entertaining yourself and others –- you’re building your digital legacy, which will live on long after you’re gone.