Ephemeral Conversation Is Dying

[LesMTS]

Very interesting article here.

The gist is that we (to differing degrees) are part of a generation that carries out a lot of its casual conversation electronically. This means that things we might have blurted out in the pub, or over coffee, or while walking down the street, things that once would have disappeared as soon as they were said, are now recorded for, well, forever, inasmuch as "forever" is relevant.
The writer is arguing that, while not necessarily a bad thing, we need to sit down and think of the implications of this, and the gap in understanding between those who communicate this way and those who don't.

Quote of the article: "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged." - Cardinal Richelieu.

[pANDAS Radio]

[poprock]

There was a good piece on this in the New Yorker back in February of 2007.

Link

Their take on it was all about the generation gap—the fact that adolescents steeped in web culture have had to accept the death of privacy, and are embracing that, whilst the older generation find it horrifying.

One interesting point was that Twitter, MySpace, Facebook, etc have led the world’s tech-savvy youth to live in a way that only politicians or celebrities did in the past—with the certain knowledge that minutiae can and will be held against you, that someone somewhere remembers exactly what you said.

[pANDAS Radio]

Very good article that, I like his ideas about the digital generation gap. Well be a strange generation in 20-30 years time because we'll remember the time before the internet, just like the generations that were our age when telephones, televisions and radios were brought in.

Maybe our Facebook pages will still be about long after we've died, charting our entire lives.

[Hammer]

That New Yorker article is interesting, but I think there is far more then just an age gap. After all, there are plenty of people in their 40s and 50s blogging, videoing, posting on forums quite freely and without concerns about privacy.

And there are plenty of young people who are free and easy with their personal details online, and plenty who aren't.
It has already been demonstrated that things said and done online can come back and haunt you in real life. Just think, in ten years time, it's not going to be occasional admissions of cannabis use that are unearthed to embarrass new politicians, it's going to be archived photos on MySpace, forum posts where they make potentially racist jokes etc.


Oh, and remember, while we like to think that some things on the internet are permanent, there will be a lot that isn't. Things like Google Cache and the internet archives don't get everything and it's easy enough to delete a blog, myspace, LJ etc and wait a few months for it to be delisted from the search engines.

[Tweez]

You just cant beat the spontaneity of good group banter, something i feel is sometimes lost on the digital generation, when you have time to think and type and answer or comidic response it looses something, but on the other handwhen you come up with total gold it cant be forgotten as its saved for prosterity, works well both ways in some sense, but i love the banter.

[endless psych]

Originally Posted by LesMTS

The gist is that we (to differing degrees) are part of a generation that carries out a lot of its casual conversation electronically. This means that things we might have blurted out in the pub, or over coffee, or while walking down the street, things that once would have disappeared as soon as they were said, are now recorded for, well, forever, inasmuch as "forever" is relevant.
The writer is arguing that, while not necessarily a bad thing, we need to sit down and think of the implications of this, and the gap in understanding between those who communicate this way and those who don't.

Scorched earth approach to new technology again methinks.

Things we might blurt out in a pub, over coffee etc don't disapear as soon as they are said. Certainly innocuous little things are - but innocuous posts on the internet are highly unlikely to be sought out and repackaged for scandal. People will tend to remember if someone has said something controversial or said something at odds with a stance/view they remember then taking in the past. Indeed in most web discussions if someone wants to question what your saying and there is something you have previously posted that contradicts this then they must know about it first.

So really its not that different from what goes on now except there is a record that cannot be questioned along the lines of poor memory. Ultimatly I suspect the rhetoric will change from challenging the reliability of listeners/witnesses to questioning the reliability of the media. (Cyber-terrorism, hacking etc)

[pANDAS Radio]

Aye, spontaneous banter is good. I'd say a fair amount of posters on AN are quite different when met in person, the internet version of someone is more like a persona because even a quickly typed IM is gonna be slower than the interchange would be in real time. As a result people's responses are partially removed from what they'd actually say, whether that be due to the abridging things for speed or because they have the opportunity to re-read and edit their thoughts before publication - blurting something out on the internet isn't as likely as it is in a face to face conversation.

[endless psych]

l'espirit de l'escalier, by rights the internet should be a lot wittier then it is.

The generation thing is interesting given internet usage is not, although it may seem, ubiquitous. 65% of households have internet access at home and there is a bias towards educated, middle class and upwards folks in that. The same holds true for America, except the percentage is nearer 55%. The internet, is perhaps unsuprisingly, a means of communication whose demographic is biased towards privilege (overall).

[poprock]

Your personal circumstances, and thus what you deem to be okay for sharing with the rest of the world, change over time. Look at the number of people who merrily post photos of themselves drunk at parties, then decide to go into teacher training and suddenly want to find and delete all their pictures.

In that case, as the posting of candid photos online becomes even more normal, how long until the employers/Councils stop caring about past indiscretions quite so much?

On a different tangent, Google makes the tabloid journalist’s job a lot easier. So-and-so becomes famous, journo types out a search query, journo finds messageboard posts about who said celebrity shagged at a party five years ago. Front page scandal follows.

[rest of post redacted at user request]

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by poprock

Your personal circumstances, and thus what you deem to be okay for sharing with the rest of the world, change over time. Look at the number of people who merrily post photos of themselves drunk at parties, then decide to go into teacher training and suddenly want to find and delete all their pictures.

This is a very good point, and there have been a good few threads about it in the past.
It's also why I don't use my full name online (with a few exceptions). No point making it easy for people to find your alcohol fuelled rantings after all

[pANDAS Radio]

Originally Posted by poprock

So-and-so becomes famous, journo types out a search query

That's how the Sunday Times contacted me about my Thatcher petition, their Editor registered with Facebook specifically to message me.

[poprock]

Facebook’s automatically considered more trustworthy because of the use of real names. That one little thing makes the world of difference to less tech-comfortable users—those on the other side of the generation gap, or comfort gap, or whatever it is.

Also lends it more authority as a source to be quoted in the traditional media, I think. Same goes for LinkedIn, but that’s got nowhere near the market share.

[pANDAS Radio]

Originally Posted by Hammer

It's also why I don't use my full name online (with a few exceptions).

I'm far too easy to trace through my name, I haven't been able to find a single other Gilleathain anywhere on the interweb. If names were allowed in Googlewhack then I'd be the Googlewhack king.

[Shannow]

Originally Posted by poprock

Facebook’s automatically considered more trustworthy because of the use of real names.

Unless you're me, obv.