Your Digital Shadow
Digital Shadow. I am very aware of this and I really don’t like it. It is somthing that out of my control also it can be miss used. Before the age of the Internet, people talk about the gossips and poloride pictures that could make contrivercy but now we got, YouTube, Facebook, photo sharing site and blog pages. The problem is even I am very careful, my friend or family can make a mistake and my information or photo can be shared around the web.
After reading chapter two of The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet by Daniel Solove, he addressed that the importance of reputation in our social world. On the disscussion board, been ask to talk about the Solove’s argue “In the past, oral gossip could tarnish a reputation, but it would fade from memories over time. People could move elsewhere and start anew.” However, these days the internet “makes gossip a permanent reputational stain, one that never fades.”
For example of ‘start wars kid’ it is very scary to think how reputation can cirlcle around the internet for a while. Some people use this to gain 10mins of fame, but what if the unknowingly my reputation has been damaged by others? Even I have tired to avoid to create my web presences, its hard not to…the SNS has the agrassive apporacoch to ‘invite’ your friends, and some time they do make it easier to communicate with your close ones, also during this course I again gain 4 more web presences. So the best way to protect and have a good online reputation would be maintaning my web presences as we do in offline with others.
I see the internet as public place, the information is there to be shared and avaliable for users who has access to it, I entiry agree with the term he used as the internet as a ‘global village’ becuase I see the internet as a tool to share information. But in social term, as its form links to share and connected to create a network (Social network) as he stated on his writing ‘A social network is a web of connections, such as a gorup of people who associate together.’ – but this nature of social network promoting people to creat a ‘link’ to other users, the network is growing and expanding, sometimes you don’t really know whos on your linked group list or which network I am part of.
Danah boyd’s article which talks about the the ‘news feed’ feature the Facebook have implaced. I didn’t had any issue myself with this as I never updated anything on my facebook, but I found it quite annoying reading all the updates and changes that my friends have made. Its like giving us the soruce to gossip about. Example, one of the person’s relationship have updated from ‘In a relationship’ to ‘It’s complicated’ - after that update I could see people are start posting and poking her asking whether she had argument with her boyfriend or she is now single, what happened to her etc…. I think its a methos of the Facebook bordcasting the friend’s ‘personal’ side of life to get people to use the site more. Also I have found out one of my sister’s friend have added me as her friend so I also add her in to my friends list, I assume she was a new facebook user as she was sending me ‘a lot’ of questionairs and add on invites… like I normally do - I igonored it. Then few weeks back, my sister told me that her friend thinks that I don’t like her and she is bit upset that I don’t respond to her requests on the facebook. Well…..
Also, I rememeber one of my freind also was worrying about adding his girlfriend into his facebook friends list… He had all sort of people on his list including his ex-girlfreind (who he remain as close friend). He was worried that by adding his new girlfreind in to the list, getting updates and all and might loose or offend certain people. I don’t think this constant update actually make friends on the list more closer, may be to fill in the ‘lastest gossips’…. the danger is this constant update can be interperate as false close friend ship. I like this comment “In his work on social upkeep, evolutionary biologist Robin Dunbar found that humans gossip (as in they share personal information) for the same reason monkeys groom – to keep tabs on the social world around them (Dunbar, 1996). There is a maximum number of monkeys that other monkeys can groom and there is a maximum number of people that humans can actively keep tabs on (Dunbar, 1992). “ - Ha ha ha
And the Boyd mentioned ‘Facebook gives the ‘gift’ of infinite social information, but this can feel too much like the One Ring – precious upfront, but destructive long-term.’ Like everyhing in this world if you use it as right tool and with right control, its is a ‘gift; facebook is a wonderful tool for many people who like to keep in touch and have the ‘link’ between your closed friends with out any barrier of time or location. Also its a great tool, if you want to communicate same information to them at once, rather then sending email or calling them.
The destructive part of facebook would be, because people are putting such a private information, the protection of personal information will be need to be considered. The Internet is public domain, once information is out there, it can be found and shared. Also people have different point of view on life, and perspective becuase of that it is so easy to mis-interperate any comments or wrirting on the facebook, which would create false sence of friendship.
