A Generation Devoid of Privacy

I rarely spend more than 10 minutes reading an article on the web, but New York Magazine's article - Kids, the Internet, and the End of Privacy: The Greatest Generation Gap Since Rock and Roll - was well worth the 8 pages and 20 minutes. The crux of the piece centers on how the desire for celebrity has eclipsed the issue of privacy in my generation and those behind me:

... 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.

So it may be time to consider the possibility that young people who behave as if privacy doesn’t exist are actually the sane people, not the insane ones. For someone like me, who grew up sealing my diary with a literal lock, this may be tough to accept. But under current circumstances, a defiant belief in holding things close to your chest might not be high-minded. It might be an artifact—quaint and naïve, like a determined faith that virginity keeps ladies pure. Or at least that might be true for someone who has grown up “putting themselves out there” and found that the benefits of being transparent make the risks worth it.

From the trenches of the web marketing field, and certainly in an industry rife with cults of personality and constant struggles by bloggers and conference attendees to gain recognition and respect, this comes as small surprise. However, the article does more than most in getting to the heart of the issue, uncovering the debates on different sides and illustrating positive and negative outcomes, at least at the personal level.

What the New York Magazine piece fails to do, though it's hardly their duty, is extrapolate the results for the online economy and ecosystem. One of my favorite quotes in the piece came from a 15-year-old Missourian girl:

One night at Two Boots pizza, I meet some tourists visiting from Kansas City: Kent Gasaway, his daughter Hannah, and two of her friends. The girls are 15. They have identical shiny hair and Ugg boots, and they answer my questions in a tangle of upspeak. Everyone has a Facebook, they tell me. Everyone used to have a Xanga (“So seventh grade!”). They got computers in third grade. Yes, they post party pictures. Yes, they use “away messages.” When I ask them why they’d like to appear on a reality show, they explain, “It’s the fame and the—well, not the fame, just the whole, ‘Oh, my God, weren’t you on TV?’ ”

The fickleness, the desire for celebrity, the incredible online savviness - this generation hasn't yet reached a time of full economic participation, but as I've mentioned in the past, the age of web enterpreneurship has only just begun. I suspect we'll see a massive effect on both global and local economics and politics - in a world where no one wants to hide, and everyone is participating in reviewing and recording every part of their lives, the business of information might well dominate and control the success or failure of everything else. It's even possible that marketing may turn from an active practice to a passive one - controlling the messages others spread, rather than spreading your own. I don't know if I'm afraid or ecstatic.

BTW - Not to be missed is the special one-page graphic detailing on of the 17-year old contributor's various profiles over her last 5 years online.