Check out Danah Boyd (of Microsoft Research and Harvard) as she responds to some comments from Eric Schmidt (of Google). According to the story in the Wall Street Journal:
“[Schmidt] predicts, apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.”
Boyd thinks this is ridiculous. Boyd’s reasoning is that online reputation is built up over time, and it’s not that easy to abandon your identity. She thinks Schmidt overestimates the impact search and social media behavior can have on an essential human characteristic.
I agree with Boyd’s conclusion but for the opposite reasoning; I think Schmidt underestimates the impact.
I believe people will start (well, continue) to act like they’re in public more of the time. I’m not saying privacy is dead, but I am saying that the nebulous quasi-public might be.
Whether we’re walking down the street or in the pub, the universality and constancy of mobile technology means that we’re always on the record.
This is something NYU’s Clay Shirky talks about a lot. I recommend checking out his work.