The Social Media Panopticon
August 8th, 2010 | View CommentsLiving in public is usually talked about in pejorative terms, with a fatalistic nod to the fact that it’s inevitable. As our social media lives collide with our actual lives, our activities are increasingly available for public consumption. In response, more and more of my friends are deleting their Facebook accounts. Will this become a widespread trend that causes Facebook’s 500 million person citizenship to dwindle back down to 400? I don’t think so, but who knows.
My position is clear — I’ve flipped all of the Facebook privacy settings off (#privacysucks), I deliberately control the first page of Google results for my name (#SEOkungfu), and I’m the proud owner of the Foursquare Oversharer badge (#aheadofthecurve). You can either go completely off the grid, or do the complete opposite. The in-between is too hard to define and curate, at least for me.
So this makes me think of things like Personal Identity, Personal Branding, and how technology has come full-circle, where once we were antisocial, alone on our computers, to now where we are more social than we’ve ever been.
Personal Identity
Who are you? How do you define yourself? I define myself, when I bother to think about it, along these lines: who I hang out with, the art and culture I consume, where I spend my time, and how I scratch out a living. At a higher level these things are directed by my values, my family and upbringing, and my quirks.
Personal Branding
If you don’t think your next employer is going to Google you, you’re crazy. So you better control those search results, or be invisible. And if you do control those search results, they need to say the right things. Here’s an exercise — what are your three best attributes? Now think about this–are your online profiles and/or search results communicating them? They should. (Need help with that? I’m happy to chat.)
The Social Media Panopticon
Imagine it’s 50 years ago and you live in a small village of 500 people. Chances are, everyone knows everything about you. Got smashed at the local saloon and got into a fight? Public knowledge. Taught the neighbors kid how to ride a bike because her parents were too busy to do it themselves? Public knowledge. It cuts both ways — your reputation goes up as you do good, your reputation goes down as you act like an asshole. And as it should.
Back to today and it’s happening again, we’re living in public. It’s the social media panopticon. That sounds pernicious and Big Brotheresque, but let’s remember that it’s voluntary. And let’s also remember that people in small villages tend to be sweet and helpful. If everything you do is being watched, don’t you act like a better person? And before you say that it’s somehow inauthentic to adopt the pose of a “better” person, don’t you actually want to be a better person? And don’t we need all the help we can get?
