I was reading the news this morning and I couldn't let this one get away without me posting it on my blog:
Woman denied degree because of MySpace profile
A classic!
There are lots of interesting things that happens in a world where things you do are more publicly accessible. It's similar to the keynote speech by Jon Kleinberg I've heard during the last SIGIR: all the 6-degree-separation endless discussion has to be revalidated. Now that social networking sites makes your social network publicly visible, all numbers and goals change. It's much easier for a person living in a cave to have hundreds of friends. On the same lines, it's much easier for a person that is trying to know more about another person to find people or direct evidence out there. In the past you had to hire a private investigator or things like that.
I could now start reciting a number of science fiction authors that predicted this shift on the concept of privacy, but I'll just end this post and start my day.
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- Michel
- Seattle, Washington, United States
- Former researcher, always a searcher, surrounded by life, drowning in projects
1 comments:
so, this topic came up at last year's foo camp in a talk let by a phd student who had been studying teen digital culture for years.
her views on this were that most teens understand this and have 2 responses:
1. they maintain multiple profiles and relationships. - basically creating a public social network for their parents and a private one. the shadow profile is where their friends actually go.
2. they are migratory between networks. over time, they will move from network to network. this keeps them from being too deeply profiled.
i find it interesting that teens raised in the culture see the current social networking sites for what they are - thin bits of functionality that aren't that fundamental to your life.
i find the trend for teens to have only IM/text message accounts and think email is for old people much more fascinating.
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