I’ve been reading lots of Social Media Predictions for 2009 (including Peter Kim’s excellent piece) and one of the trends that stood out for me was Cleansing.
I suppose it’s the digital equivalent of Spring Cleaning and a good ‘new year, new me’, kind of activity. This week I’ve found myself cleaning out my RSS feed and ‘defriending’ on facebook so my friends list is entirely composed of my actual, real-life friends and not people I last saw when we sat our GCSEs in 1993.
There’s also been a lot written about how there’s going to be a need for services that ‘sanitise’ your social media profile. One report made the very good point that the politicians of 2030 are currently at uni, posting drunken pictures of themselves on facebook. Heaven help anyone who suddenly finds fame in the next few years, only to have their facebook/ blog/ flickr/ twitter feeds mercilessly scoured for any hint of scandal.
I don’t think the majority of social media users have totally woken up to the fact that whatever they upload to the internet will be there forever.
Indeed. Its the inherent problem of social media, but it will at least make for some amusing election stories in 20 years or so.
Good post – you’ve mirrored my own thoughts about social media.
I’ve found having a blog (esp. on my name’s own domain name) an odd experience. Sometimes I’m happy for everyone to read my little rants…sometimes I’m a bit more shy! (hence the profile photo I think!)
…and I’m not even remotely famous! Yes, it must be much easier these days for journalists to find an embarassing photo.
The Internet has a very long memory.