The New Stalkers
The world is an open book. Nothing is private anymore. Everyone can find out the most personal details on any friend or stranger these days. At 43 years old, I am caught in the middle of this shift from private to public. My kids wont know a world with privacy. Their life will be an open book.
This really hit me riding on the Acela Train from NYC to Washington DC. People are sitting there getting work done chatting on their cellphones. A rider across from me was having trouble connecting to her companies email system and called her technical support. She said her name on the call and I thought I would see how much I could find out about her in the next 5 minutes.
Using LinkedIn, Facebook and Google, I found out where she worked, went to school, lived and interests. That took all of 2 minutes.
I really wanted to ask her "What was it like going to MIT in 1992?" or "Been skydiving recently?" or "Great time on the Turkey Trot Road race last year, plan to do it again"
But I am from the "old" world and "old" world people get freaked out about this openness. I felt like a stalker researching this person in front of her. I wonder how an 18 year old feels about this..my guess is that they would be totally comfortable doing this.
What's the point of all this? Not sure. Social trends take a long time to take hold and this is one trend that will surely change the ways of the world....
Oh and please remember, next time you are blabbering away on your cellphone - the buisinessman sitting across from you may be looking up recent pictures of you from Halloween....
This really hit me riding on the Acela Train from NYC to Washington DC. People are sitting there getting work done chatting on their cellphones. A rider across from me was having trouble connecting to her companies email system and called her technical support. She said her name on the call and I thought I would see how much I could find out about her in the next 5 minutes.
Using LinkedIn, Facebook and Google, I found out where she worked, went to school, lived and interests. That took all of 2 minutes.
I really wanted to ask her "What was it like going to MIT in 1992?" or "Been skydiving recently?" or "Great time on the Turkey Trot Road race last year, plan to do it again"
But I am from the "old" world and "old" world people get freaked out about this openness. I felt like a stalker researching this person in front of her. I wonder how an 18 year old feels about this..my guess is that they would be totally comfortable doing this.
What's the point of all this? Not sure. Social trends take a long time to take hold and this is one trend that will surely change the ways of the world....
Oh and please remember, next time you are blabbering away on your cellphone - the buisinessman sitting across from you may be looking up recent pictures of you from Halloween....
posted by Michael Carey at 7:12 AM
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