This is a touchy subject. It is a new subject. How do we conduct ourselves in an increasingly social media oriented world? More specifically, how do we conduct our children’s lives in this place of 24/7 updates with a false sense of cyber security (please remember, nothing is beyond the reach of hackers on the world-wide web)?
The way I see it, all psychology textbooks have been rendered out of date. We are in new territory now with children coming of age in a time where their childhoods have been chronicled in varying detail from the cute photo updates to the less savory like specifying their latest growing pains snafu.
This is personal. So personal that none of us has a right to tell the other how to do this. We are doing it and the lessons from it are due to come in soon. Some adults will be largely unaffected by growing up with their lives an open digital scrapbook for others to see since most of their contemporaries have the same story.
Speaking of stories, some children will grow up to find out as they read back in old “feeds” that their childhood was quite idyllic with perhaps a splash of sarcastic satire. Undoubtedly there will be some disillusioned as what they see is not what they feel when they render their upbringing. There are countless combinations of emotions and overall psychological profiles that will emerge because of this new evolution of human behavior of “sharing” and “liking” in a digital cloud.
As a parent myself, I have carved out my own code of conduct in agreement with my husband regarding how we share our family online. If I would dare to share unsolicited advice to other parents it would be to try to diversify your child’s historical record by not limiting it to your online social media service. Try a handwritten journal to them throughout their growing years, ask them as they become more independent in their adolescence if they want their life chronicled online, et cetera.
While the anthropologists of the world may be very anxious about the recent discovery of bones in a South African cave and what it means for humans today, I would argue that the biggest discovery is yet to be unveiled in upcoming years in the psychological profiles of the post-millenial generation (either known as gen-edge or gen-z).
R.V.S.B.
Price of Privacy: Isolation or Ignorance?
Follow the Rabbit
Thanks to Edward J. Snowden’s current life adventure, the question of our privacy in 2013 and beyond has come into question again. Mr. Snowden isn’t so special, however, as there’s weekly news bulletins that highlight how transparent we’ve become whether we know or like it—hardly anything is a secret.
Remember the Red Seal?
There was a time when official state or personal correspondence was sealed with a wax imprint to ensure the privacy of its contents. Today we may have certified mail or services like FedEx for direct correspondence but the majority of us conduct both professional and personal discourse through the internet and phone texts. There’s no guarantee that these interactions are safe from unwanted monitoring or hacking.
Blame the Governments?
The fact remains that the U.S. government is unable to truly “spy” on everyone’s conversations or internet blah-blah: there simply isn’t enough manpower and the computer algorithms in place are just barely keeping up with the real terrorist/hostile enemy threats to U.S. citizens and interests. Personal responsibility remains the ugly elephant in the room—when you log in or have your phone on, you are placing yourself in a vulnerable position.
Perception is Revealing
The next time you post photos on your social media website of choice, try to imagine that you just ran them on one of the huge screens at New York City’s Time Square and any other major metropolis in the world. Let’s take that a step further and consider that the text you sent earlier today blasting your boss was retrieved by your human resources department at the job—oops. An entire article could respectively be devoted to the exposure of our financial, medical and other very personal assets in this “connected” world.
Concede or Recede?
I personally don’t know what the answer is to this question of our privacy in the 21st century. It must be a conversation we continue to have without too much malice for one group or another–respect for each other is the best foundation to find what’s our common ground. Please remember that those who work in the government are still people just like you and me. In order to live freely in America we’ve had compromise through the decades of contentious things like the Civil War, Civil Rights and now access to information–personal or public.
R.V.S.Bean
note: for those catching up on news of Mr. Snowden, a recent New York Times article found here http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/world/europe/snowden-case-carries-a-cold-war-aftertaste.html?_r=0
and I recommend watching Ben Affleck’s “Argo” for a Hollywood-style reality check on just how deadly information in the wrong hands can be (I’m sure there are many other films in this category, this was the most recent I’ve watched-cheers!)