Will Social Media Turn Us All Into Wimps?

In a few days I’ll be leaving for Las Vegas to address the 38th Annual Credit Union Directors & CEOs Convention, where I’ll speak on the subject of building more trust with members and turning that into a competitive business advantage.

But of course, visitors to Las Vegas are encouraged to misbehave for fun. The metropolis that freely refers to itself as “Sin City” consoles its tourists with the slogan “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.”

A similar slogan, however, might not be so comforting:  “What happens on the Internet stays on the Internet.”  Or, as Joe Rogan’s character once said on the TV series Newsradio, “Dude, you can’t take something off the Internet. That’s like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.”

Stories of injustices done to people on account of their online record are easy to come by.  Teachers denied jobs on account of injudicious online pictures.  Canadians denied entry to the US because an online search reveals drug use in the distant past.   College applicants denied a place as a result of previous online antics.

Does this mean that we're all now destined to become more cautious and private, with reduced inclinations to be expressive, open, and imaginative?  Will we inevitably be turned into colorless wimps by the threat of future exposure?  Will we be like political candidates trying to avoid any possible controversial comments that, years later when taken out of context, will deprive them of votes? 

In the UK a movement that calls itself the “iRightsCoalition” has secured the backing of Baroness Joanna Shields, the tech-industry guru now serving as Minister for Internet Safety and Security. According to a recent report by the BBC, iRights is mounting a campaign to ensure that young people are allowed to edit or delete their online records. How this can be accomplished is difficult to pin down, but the organization wants to achieve its goal with as little actual regulation as necessary. This means the effort could involve a number of informal industry standards or protocols being authored by internet users and endorsed by a large number of influential internet companies, and the coalition is now actively trying to engage key executives and companies involved in social media.

With respect to the young people in my own family, I once had one of those difficult-to-win father-son discussions in which I tried to warn my teenage son about the dangers of too much carefree online exuberance.  “Remember,” I said wisely, “When you’re 35 and trying to find a job, the person who interviews you will be able to call up whatever pictures you’ve posted or comments you’ve made online.” 

But my advice only earned a condescending teenage look.  “Dad,” he replied, “When I’m 35 and interviewing for a job, don’t you think the person who’s interviewing me will have their own pictures online?”  Good point, son. 

It would be great if people could just lighten up a bit, but unfortunately I’m not sure they will. Our society has become a rigidly disciplined and highly competitive meritocracy.  Instead of hand-to-hand combat, we do resumé-to-resumé battle.  Moreover, in the politically correct age we inhabit, the arbiters of these battles – whether judges, employers, admissions boards, or government bureaucrats – reach for any “facts” at all that can substitute for taking the risk of using their own subjective human judgment. 

If we want to know where this is headed, we only have to look to the political sphere.  For a full generation now politics has been full of wrangling so bitter and vitriolic that both sides’ weapon of choice is often outright character assassination.  Ruining a career over peccadilloes in the distant past has become a highly refined political tactic on both sides of the aisle.  And today the search for such fatal flaws has been aided immensely by all our new technologies for electronic recording and recall. 

So will this be our future as a social species?  Will it take only a decade or so of social media-inspired character assassinations before kids learn that the best way to get ahead in life is to keep their heads down and be careful not to provoke any controversy? Or might we, as my son implied, become more and more forgiving of others, knowing that we all have our own peccadillos to worry about?