I'm 25 years old. I've been on Facebook since 2005, one year after it was launched. For me, the idea of a timeline presentation of the past 6 years of my life on Facebook is pretty cool. People have reacted positively to the "Your Status 1 Year Ago Today" feature that popped up recently, and I think the idea of having one's digital life chronicled will be met with a positive reception. After all, a person's identity online is a projection of what we want people to know or believe about us, so what we'll end up having is everyone's autobiography of their most flattering stories and memories. I have more to say about online identities/projections, but that will be for a later post, because instead, a further thought has captivated me.
If we're really interested in people knowing about our entire lives (when we were born, where we've lived, what we looked like when we were 6, etc.) my generation and the ones before me will be faced with the arduous task of converting physical assets into digital ones, and posting all of that information. The nice thing is that to skip time, we can selectively choose only the most important life events from our past that we want to share. And then the thought hit me: this entire paragraph will not be true at all for my children.
When my first son, James, was born in 2007, his baby picture was on Facebook within 24 hours of his delivery. When my second son, Jesse, was born in 2008, photos were up the same night he was born. And with my daughter, Ember, who was born this past June, the photo of her on the delivery room scale was uploaded via my mobile phone within seconds.
My point is this: by the time my daughter is a teenager and FINALLY able to have a Facebook account (or whatever it will be by then), her entire life since birth will largely already be chronicled digitally. Not only that, but none of the information shared in that digital chronicle will be what she chose to share. It will all be information her parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc. have shared about her.
The idea that the past 6 years of my Facebook life will be chronicled is already staggering to me, but what are the implications for the next generation who will have a decade or more of content about them online before they are able to manage their own digital identity? We're already talking about over-sharing with our generation. How will our kids feel about it when they come of age?
My wife and I often talk about these kinds of things, and no, I don't expect a dystopian-styled uprising that results in the complete destruction of the internet. However, I won't at all be surprised if the conversation changes its focus. I anticipate that when the next generation reaches their 20s or 30s, they'll shift the focus from counting the number of people who are sharing their lives online to counting the number of people who have chosen to radically simplify their lives by sharing the least amount of information possible. Why do I think that?
How many of today's children take second place to their mommies and daddies playing Farmville? How many of them will miss out on the proud look in their dad's eyes when they get a base-hit because he was too busy tweeting it to all of his followers? Will our relationships with our children be fostered through experiences we share together "in the moment," or strained by the distraction of chronicling our lives in real-time? Will our children's lives be filled with moments where they felt our genuine love and pride in them for who they are, or memories of us sharing their achievements because of what it says about us and our great parenting skills?
As we continue to push the envelope and make incredible progress in terms of a customizable online experience, how often do we sit back and consider the long-term effects it will have after we're gone? Do we care?
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