When I was teaching up at UCSB, I had a moment that was equal parts enlightening and scary. Standing at the front of my class one day, I looked at each face and mentally ran through everything I knew about each person. Now, when I was in college, my TA could have done this, but the data recollected back would have amounted to nothing more than my actions in class or what other TA’s had said about me. Fast forward to 2004 or 2005 though, and suddenly things were quite different.
I knew for instance that one student just broke up with his girlfriend. I knew that another had gotten really shit-faced on DP the night before. I knew one was a film-maker and just started principle. I knew about virginity’s lost, drugs taken, hook-ups and breakups. I knew a hell of a lot more than I ever should have. And I knew because every student in there had a MySpace page, Facebook page and in some cases a blog. Most had “friended” me, and those that didn’t were already within the social network.
It took one evening of surfing to find out a decade worth of information.
I realized something was strange of course. When I was in college, there was no predication toward splitting my life into metrics and populating surveys, memes and profiles with said information. My information, my life, was to be private. To me, a MySpace Survey would be akin to identity theft.
MySpace Meme = Identity Theft
I’m a polemic asshole of course, so I had to test this. On March 5, I published my MySpace Survey, which included things like:
What is your wife’s maiden name (if you’re married)?
Do you own a paper shredder?
How many times have you moved in the last five years?
What is your credit score, in semaphore?
It of course was never meant to be taken seriously. I was making a point that in a world obsessed with the sanctity of the data that defines Us, college and high school aged kids were completely eradicating that sanctity by filling out as personal of information as they could under the guise of propagating a meme through friends. Their parents might shred their credit card statement, but they would gladly tell the world that it had been 3 weeks since they cried, 2 days since they last drank and they were right now wearing stripped pajamas.
Something strange happened though to prove my point for me: Google liked the survey. For a bit (not anymore though), if you Googled “MySpace Survey” my survey came up on page one. To my surprise, people started taking it. A sample:
RIGHT NOW
Where are you sitting? In my living room
In what room? The living one!
Are you by a window? No
Are you alone? Yes
Is the door locked? Yes
Can I come over? No, you’re a nut
No qualms made out of answering the questions, she even gave me her pets name (which I ask because its one of the most common passwords). But to call me a nut? Come on.
So what is going on here?
I’ve chosen to call the current generation of Internet users the Survey Generation. Some people are going to call them the MySpace Generation, but I think the point and beauty of MySpace is just one indication of a larger movement. The Survey Generation is designated by a population of people who in the absence of control of the data they produce, have decided to take back control and make the data subjugate to themselves. We all know that as we live, we produce data dandruff, flaky bits of binary that spread themselves out from data-exchange points. Buying a plane ticket, super-market club cards, NSA back rooms, ISP records, IP addresses, etc, etc. I move through the world physically, leaving a long trail of data behind me with wreck-less abandon.
This generation of people is aware of this, even subconsciously. They haven’t known a world outside of surveillance and the universal panoptic. They haven’t known a place without the concept of data-logging, verification checks, CAPCHAS, “mothers maiden name” security fields and always the request for their birthday.
Instead of shying away from this form of data collection, intrusion and objectification, they have taken it back.
Surveys, memes, quizzes and tests.
What Buffy character are you? What Harry Potter character are you? What is your political persuasion?
Do you like your job?
Was college worth it?
When was the last time you broke something out of rage?
When was the last time you broke a bone?
Who was the last person you talked to?
What is your FICO score?
What is your SSN, in binary?
Who are you really?
Comments 3
It’s scary the amount of personal information that’s floating around out there. I think people are definitely more at risk because of personal information they’ve voluntarily shared than information theft.
When I was an information security officer in the Navy, the biggest threat we had to deal with was the leaking of unclassified information, not necessarily classified information. With enough unclassified information analyzed in the right way, an enemy would have far more information than needed to be a threat.
Posted 26 Jun 2006 at 9:20 am ¶get a life please is it your problem tyat people post info like they do? Let people do what they want. I bet your one of those nerds who sit in a chair and need to find a reason not to have fun and make fun of people who do have fun. get a life
Posted 30 Jun 2006 at 8:41 pm ¶Wow. guy, you’re deep.
Posted 04 Jul 2006 at 4:52 am ¶Trackbacks & Pingbacks 4
[...] Where does that leave us in terms of Rocketboom et al? We’re in a world where the metaphorically difference between public and private has been eliminated by memes, surveys and demographic data assembled in to the notion of a social network. A world where the difference between snapshot and private photo is a flag on a photo service. A world where 15 year olds lip sync on web-cams before their parents come home, and post it for the world to see without consequence, thereby reducing ridicule down through sheer volume of possible sources. [...]
[...] blog.myspace.com/andhole: another kid took my MySpace Survey. I can laugh? Or I can cry? [...]
[...] apophenia: will facebook learn from its mistake?: What the fuck was their mistake? If there was one mistake, they assumed that the generation of kids actually knew what privacy was. And understood that data isn’t stationary. And understood how databases work. And understood that information in one place is information in MANY. But no, we have a generation of kids that think surveys are fun, that have no problem filling out every little detail of their life, and then wonder why their TA knew who they fucked the night before. [...]
[...] I honestly never thought I’d ever be one to post a cat picture online. I don’t own a cat. I don’t consider myself a “cat person”. And, I’m usually pretty allergic. And yet, here I am, posting a cat picture. I’m still not sure if this is a good idea, but I’m going ahead with it anyways. Watch. The next think you know, I’ll be forwarding superstition laced chain letters to my friends, and filling out every survey that crosses my path on MySpace. [...]
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