In an article published in yesterday’s edition of the Daily Telegraph, Google CEO Eric Schmidt predicted that in the future, the youth of today will find it necessary to change their names to avoid the embarrassing online exploits of their former selves. (That article can be read here)
Now, far be it from me to disagree with the Chief Executive Officer of Google, but as a youth of today, I feel compelled to at least state my opinion on the matter. The question of how the children of the social media generation will deal with the skeletons in their online closets has been coming up since the very beginnings of social media. Often mentioned in this discussion are the pictures that many youths post of themselves at parties with alcoholic beverages. One article that I read (though I can’t recall where) argued that these types of irresponsible online posts will one day become so common that their existence will become irrelevant, and while I don’t entirely agree, the point is an interesting one. A more striking argument is that the youth of today are becoming increasingly savvy to the potential hazards connected to the things they post.
Today’s youth are actually censoring and, in turn, branding themselves at younger ages than ever before. Studies have shown that children are actively maintaining their profiles in such a way so as to paint themselves in a positive light. I’ve even seen parties where cameras weren’t allowed at all for this very reason, and I believe this kind of behavior is becoming the rule as opposed to the exception. The answer to how people deal with the embarrassing things they post online is becoming more and more that they don’t post them in the first place.
While it’s true that some may find themselves troubled by their online past, I doubt very seriously that we will see a surge in changed identities anytime soon. If social media changes anything, it won’t be people’s names; it’ll be the maturity with which young people present themselves online. While the world of social media may seem like a strange unexplored territory, these types of issues are nothing new. I’m sure that people asked many of these same questions when the personal camera was first invented, and I think we’ve turned out just fine.
