Online Exhibitionism: One Of The Most Disturbing Web 2.0 Trends

We all know the famous trends of web 2.0 like user-generated content or content syndication and we have grown to accept the internet as it is – along with all the strengths and weaknesses of the system. And of course as any medium internet can have both good and bad sides – and quite logically it does have both of them.

While it is totally understandable and no one will argue that internet truly makes life more enjoyable than it would have been if not for the world wide web for many people around the world and for some (me included) it has already turned into the place where we spend almost all our waking time, communicate with friends and work as well.

But at the same time there are plenty of things about our reliance on the internet that cause concerns from many of us and one of such trends is online exhibitionism (as I would name it) – the trend where people tend to be way more open online than they could ever be in real life.

To tell you the truth, this whole reliance on user-generated content seems to be quite a disturbing trend to me overall as heavy users of web 2.0 sites seem to have learned their role of generating content pretty well and don’t see any limits for it – generating all the content websites’ owners expect them to without any second thought.

For example, if you write a blog post about feeding your dog with a particular type of food and someone will find it in Google while searching for that food brand, you will be the person who generates content for your visitor to consume – even if this is only your personal blog located on a free blogging platform. And people seem to enjoy the role of being generators of content and begin sharing more personal things that normally are kept to themselves or only shared with the most intimate friends – like death of that very dog.

So it now looks like people don’t want to keep anything to themselves anymore with everyone eagerly embracing this transparency and revealing the most personal details without thinking of who may eventually see what you share.

For some reason people still think that when they put something in their Twitter updates or in their blog (both of the feeds being publicly available) it is not the same as putting this very thing in a direct message to the people they don’t want to see this particular piece of information (like their teachers, future employers or family) – without realizing that these very people will be able to easily discover whatever it is that they put online anyway.

After all, there’s no real difference between putting something in your Twitter status and putting the very same thing as an inscription on your T-shirt or printing it and putting the paper on your door – yet people somehow think that the virtual nature of communications should somehow make them safe and so they fail to realize that the web is open for all, not only for those they want to see the public content they publish.

We already seem not to think about what we put online and where and somehow forget about the potential audience of every word that you decide to share online – yet people seem to want to have more and more tools to demonstrate everything about their lives to everyone who would want to listen.

Recently I have grumbled here about my privacy concerns over the newly introduced functionality of Gmail Labs that allows every Gmail user to add their real location to the signature of every email they send. And while there were some people who agreed this type of openness was too much and hardly needed at all, the vast majority of internet users were absolutely happy about the fact that Google introduced another cool feature: after all, when Google launches something you are supposed to be happy and don’t think it over critically.

Another amazing discovery to me is that more than 90% of all Twitter accounts are public with only less than 10% of all Twitter users having private feeds. Honestly, for a service that is intended to let your friends know where you are what you are up to, I hoped the proportion would be much different with a higher number of private feeds yet my guess was wrong and people prefer to stay open on Twitter with whatever it is that they intend to share.

Of course it is understandable that companies and individuals belonging to certain professions and trying to advertise their services or sell their goods on Twitter need this openness. The same is true for me personally and many of my fellow bloggers: Twitter is a place for additional distribution of our content and discussions around this content so we need to be open there as well. But given the mainstream popularity of Twitter I hoped that the vast majority of people there must be regular internet users who actually use the microblogging service to exchange information about their whereabouts with friends. And this sharing with friends idea is definitely not about making it open to anyone who would want to listen.

Honestly, the level of openness that many people choose online is truly very different from what they choose in their real lives. For example, we have already seen divorces happening because of one of the spouses being way too transparent about their love affairs in social networks but still people think that hiding from your spouse in real life is a must while doing the same online is optional.

At the same time the irony is that there are also people who are very concerned about privacy and about what information they are willing to share and some internet users are attentive enough to notice the exact number of days the search engines will keep the information about our search terms. But at the same time the vast majority of people don’t even think about such things and are more open to their information than any search engine could ever be.

This looks more than strange to me: a tiny number of people realizing some companies keeping way too much information on our online behavior compared to the huge number of people more than willing to share just about anything about their personal lives online and never thinking who will see this or that photo or Twitter update letting the entire world know their whereabouts. And the worst part is that I don’t even think that all the technology bloggers in the world trying to tell people it can be dangerous to put your private details online for anyone to see will help educate people about proper use of social media tools and acceptable level of exhibitionism online.

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