The younger generation that is putting itself out in the public sphere may not worry about sexual predators or the long term consequences of their online confessionals. It may be that they are aware of the potential hazards of on-line predators and can identify people that may wish to do them harm. It seems to me that predators are only one danger that this openness can lead to. Young people don't always have a very long term view no matter what generation they are in or were in. Take smoking as an example; kids are still smoking because it's cool and contrary, even though everyone in their right mind knows it's bad for you. They are under the naive conception that they will only smoke a little bit and then quit whenever they want. With out fully considering the long term affects on their health or not caring, kids are still forming the habit. Is this the same mind set that prevails as kids put personal information, pictures, videos, and lot's of writing out in the public?
I wonder as these young folks become older, if their attitudes will change. But what then; "one 2006 government study--framed, as such studies are, around the stranger-danger issue--showed that 61 percent of 13-to-17-year-olds have a profile online, half with photos. A recent pew Internet Project study put it at 55 percent of 12-to-17-year-olds. These numbers are rising rapidly"(Nussbaum). When these young people start applying to college will admissions and records check out their profiles and decide from this information who gets into college based on their internet activities.
The world these young adults live in are not yet tightly wound around long term life or financial goals, as they will be in the coming years. How will their attitudes change as they realize that all the information they have put out about themselves preclude them from professional level jobs, careers requiring background checks, mortgages, car loans, relationships with potential spouses, relationships with their own children?
Nussbaum points out that a generation gap exists between the old school internet users that are weary of anything about themselves going public and the digital natives that are willing to show it all. She suggests that they may be less naive than some might think. "And after all, there is another way to look at this shift. Younger people, one could point out, are the only ones for whom it seems to have sunk in that the idea of a truly private life is already an illusion. Every street in New York has a surveillance camera. Each time you swipe your debit card at Duane Reade or use your MetroCard, that transaction is tracked. Your employer owns your e-mails. The NSA owns your phone calls. Your life is being lived in public whether you choose to acknowledge it or not" (Nussbaum). Are we digital immigrants the naive group or are we just realists who have more life experience and had time to feel the consequences of our earlier actions.
From a teaching point of view I was impressed by the comments of one young lady that Nussbaum interviewed for her story who seems to have cultivated a mature and thoughtful attitude about her postings on the web. "...as more people linked to her, she became correspondingly self-aware. ..."I would try to write things that would not put them off," she remembers. "Things that were not silly. I tried to make my posts highly stylized and short, about things I would imagine people would want to read or comment on."" This conscious growth in self editing is an attitude any teacher would applaud. I would hope that this type of behavior is normal and evolves for every child as they become teens and teens become adults. But the earlier stuff is still out there. It is non-retractable and very public.
Privacy issues will be on everyone's minds as the world wide web is mined for information and used for commercial purposes and for assaults on our civil liberties. Our current administration is actively eavesdropping as much as they can on us now. How will that affect us in the future as "common data structures" are introduced to the web to create better compatibilities. As David de Roure an adviser to W3C points out: "It means that you will be able to ask a website questions you couldn't ask before, or perform calculations on the data it contains" (Marks, 2006). So where is the peril in this computer technology advancement for internet users? "Clusters of people in highly connected groups become apparent, as do people with few connections who appear to be the intermediaries between such groups. The idea is to see by how many links or "degrees" separate people from, say, a member of a blacklisted organization"(Marks).
It seems to me, from an educators point of view, it very important to be aware of the digital divide that exists between generations. The divide is not just in our comfort with the use of computers but it also exists in our comfort level with privacy. Being conscious of how the digital natives are using the internet is very important in forming relationships that are non-judgmental. Using the knowledge that students are willing to write and create for their audience to better facilitate learning in the classroom could lead to satisfaction for both teacher and student. Let's not stifle the creativity but help student be careful and self aware of long term impacts their internet use will have in their future. Because as much as we hate to admit it there is no privacy on the internet.
Nussbaum, E. (n.d.). Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy: The Greatest Generation Gap Since Rock and Roll.
New York Magazine. Retrieved July 17, 2008, from
http://nymag.com/news/features/27341/index1.htmlMarks, P. (2006). Pentagon sets its sights on social networking websites.
New ScientistRetrieved July 17, 2008, from
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19025556.200?DCMP=NLC-nletter&nsref=mg19025556.200
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