Yesterday I saw an interesting article at the New York Times related to how difficult it is get out of the FaceBook. Everyone knows that all of the online social spaces out there will eventually jump the shark and that you'll just walk away ... a lot of people will simply stop logging in, while others will "clean out their lockers" in a digital sense and close their accounts. I am guessing that the vast majority of students who spend upwards of five to six hours a week in the FB aren't thinking about that. Well according to the Times, they should be.
We discussed the idea that a person's identity is no longer tied to just their physical presence on ETS Talk a few weeks -- instead is a mash up of all the places they spend their time either physically or virtually. What it means is that identity is really a meta identity made up from the social places we share our pictures, favorite books, music, and thoughts. These things get mashed together to help those around us understand who we are or who we want to be. With this in mind it is becoming more important to know exactly what you are posting and understand the long-term implications. If you look at the FB, it is hard to imagine that it is currently at the center of this issue (it is, BTW, the number one photo sharing site on the Internet here in the US) but it really is. If you build a major piece of identity at the FB, you better be ready to have it stick around for quite some time. Its true, I read it online.
