Aaron Ross Powell: The Age of Abundant Communication and the Decline of Privacy
Mike W
· 4 months ago
I like your analogy of material abundance to communication abundance. I wonder, though, whether the generation living in the Internet era will come to regret and change their habits or whether societal conventions will change so that employers ignore indiscretions online.
My first post-undergrad job was writing for a newspaper, and I can still find the articles online. I wouldn't link them here, though. They're awful. As a consequence of experiences like that, I think, I am careful about what I post online with my name associated.
I own a vanity domain that uses my real name. I've thought about setting up a blog there. And had second thoughts. And then considered again...
Aaron Ross Powell
· 4 months ago
The question about whether online indiscretions will lead to regret or if there will be a change in societal conventions is crucial and you're absolutely right to bring it up. I'm inclined to think society will change, if only because, over time, those kids who posted drunk photos on Facebook will become the employers.
Though it may also become a moot issue as teenagers better use the privacy settings built into social networking sites. An employer isn't likely to hack a Facebook profile when evaluating a potential employee.
MorganJ
· 2 months ago
I see the openness of the younger set as reaction to the walls that exist in our society. The greatest generation had more official social outlets. They were connected to their world. They knew their place in it. We say it was a smaller world. If you read Bowling Alone, it talks about clubs and how the baby boomers stopped joining these clubs. As gen X'ers we were never exposed to these official social connects so we as social animals made up new methods to connect with the world around us. Our world is bigger, but bigger is also scary and so walls form. We pretend that all the people on facebook are our friends and we live in a bubble.
By the way I followed your link from FF and there are WH invasion players in VA.
Aaron Ross Powell
· 2 months ago
@MorganJ: I'm not sure what "living in a bubble" means. It doesn't strike me that people of my generation--or younger ones--go out any less, get together with their friends, any less, party any less, etc., than prior generations. We don't have official clubs so much, true, and we attend church less, but that only means we've shifted our social activities. There was a time when people were convinced the telephone would destroy social cohesion.
(I haven't read "Bowling Alone," but going through the reviews and descriptions on Amazon, I imagine I wouldn't agree with its conclusions.)
Sam Davidson
· 1 month ago
Hi Mr. Powell,
I found your website after searching the 'net for symbolicorder.com I used to read it occasionally a long time ago. Whatever happened to it? Anyway, speaking of 'abundant communications' and such, I would like to invite you to read www.occidentaldissent.com, a blog focused on race and culture.
Aaron Ross Powell
· 1 month ago
Sam, Symbolic Order vanished through a stupid mistake on my part. I thought the domain name was on auto-renew -- and it wasn't. So now it's in the possession of a domain squatter. I've moved all my blogging here and Trevor blogs (very occasionally and not recently) at reasonworks.org.
All Comments
My first post-undergrad job was writing for a newspaper, and I can still find the articles online. I wouldn't link them here, though. They're awful. As a consequence of experiences like that, I think, I am careful about what I post online with my name associated.
I own a vanity domain that uses my real name. I've thought about setting up a blog there. And had second thoughts. And then considered again...
Though it may also become a moot issue as teenagers better use the privacy settings built into social networking sites. An employer isn't likely to hack a Facebook profile when evaluating a potential employee.
By the way I followed your link from FF and there are WH invasion players in VA.
that people of my generation--or younger ones--go out any less, get together
with their friends, any less, party any less, etc., than prior generations.
We don't have official clubs so much, true, and we attend church less, but
that only means we've shifted our social activities. There was a time when
people were convinced the telephone would destroy social cohesion.
(I haven't read "Bowling Alone," but going through the reviews and
descriptions on Amazon, I imagine I wouldn't agree with its conclusions.)
I found your website after searching the 'net for symbolicorder.com I used to read it occasionally a long time ago. Whatever happened to it? Anyway, speaking of 'abundant communications' and such, I would like to invite you to read www.occidentaldissent.com, a blog focused on race and culture.
I'll check out occidentaldissent.com. Thanks for the pointer.