Digital Citizenry

Now you have your Facebook page, twitter account and devices to view, download, upload, capture and share images, blog, Skype and discuss your every thought, how will you behave? For some the apparent anonymity allows them to take on a digital persona of someone completely different from their “hardcopy” selves. In many ways the internet is replacing your memories; why clutter your memory-bank when you can store it virtually? But this also has led to the phenomena of people learning and developing online. So your online behaviour reflects your actual development as a citizen.

With immediate access we can very nearly capture our every thought in this “stream of consciousness” world.  But would you allow anyone access to all your petty, lustful, spiteful, bitchy, silly, shameful, and wonderfully human ideas? Your anonymity can be illusionary. If someone wanted to access your thoughts badly enough they can. Ask yourself a simple question about your online self. If you were going for a job interview, would you be happy to allow your prospective employer access to your Facebook and twitter account or and to all of the websites you ever viewed? (Some employers in the US have begun to ask job applicants for their social media passwords!)

But the main point of social responsibility on the web is that with any communications comes responsibility, and with the ability to reach large numbers comes increased responsibility on us the users. The democratisation of how people can interact with each other can have a hugely positive spin off with people holding people in power accountable. People power on the web has now become a factor in how large corporations and governmental power is wielded. It also has had a transformative effect on many old consumerist strangleholds. Young people have “liberated” their music, films, games, and telecommunications and used uploaded videos to highlights human rights abuses in totalitarian regimes, and piano playing cats!

In many ways the internet is this generation’s voice, its beat poetry, avant-garde cinema and rock and roll all blended together. So it’s your responsibility what you leave behind, your record of what you are. Maybe it would be good if you decided to “use it wisely”. Well just a little!