I've been thinking about the recent and dramatic increase in our level of public exposure. When you start using Facebook on your Blackberry, you enter a new world of global, never-ending dialogue between strippers (=you, me, and everyone we know) and voyeurs (=you, me, and everyone we know). Have you noticed how vintage the word "privacy" sounds? That's because it's been replaced by "identity": while the end of the 20th century was all about keeping your personal data secret, this new century is all about keeping your personal data accessible to all but usable and amendable only by you.
Yes, you've thought about this a hundred times before. To tell you the truth, I even think it's fine: I don't care that my friends' friends can see where I live, I don't care that everyone knows I was off my head last night, I don't care to be tagged in pictures where I don't look great. Even if my mother had access to details of my lose morals, I wouldn't really mind. I don't mind now because I'm young and carefree and noone really expects me to behave, so it's OK.
But just start thinking about what's going to happen in a couple of years. Limitless blackmail possibilities. For some of us who become important political or industrial figures. Or more commonly even, for those of us who decide to create their own dysfunctional family. Think about your 12-year-old daughter reading your wall posts.
Oh well - She'll just have to get over it. Or if it really is too embarrassing, I'm sure she'll have the last hope of DNA-testing whether you really are her biological parent or not.
Hold on, was that last bit the really scary part of the story?
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