{"id":655757,"date":"2013-05-02T12:32:50","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T16:32:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ted.com\/?p=75403"},"modified":"2013-05-02T12:32:50","modified_gmt":"2013-05-02T16:32:50","slug":"when-our-private-lives-become-public-online-will-it-make-us-more-or-less-tolerant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/655757","title":{"rendered":"When our private lives become public online … will it make us more or less tolerant?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JuanEnriquez_2013U-embed\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not arguing that this stuff shouldn\u2019t exist,\u201d says Juan Enriquez. \u201cI\u2019m saying that precisely because this stuff is so powerful, we should be careful and think about what we\u2019re doing, instead of treating it like a lark, thinking if we post something at 2am that no one will care.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Boston-based entrepreneur and many-time TED speaker<\/a>\u00a0is mulling the impact of social media and new technology in an interview with the TED Blog yesterday. As he asks in this short talk from TED2013<\/a>, what if the \u201cdigital tattoos\u201d we create by using programs such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google are in fact as enduring as any embellishment on our physical selves? Shouldn’t we at least try to avoid being branded with the digital equivalent of an embarrassing tramp stamp?<\/p>\n

\"JuanJuan Enriquez: Your online life, permanent as a tattoo<\/span><\/a>\u00a0It’s a new metaphor for an old topic, one that’s busied writers and thinkers of every generation. As Enriquez himself points out, the ancient Greeks were terribly taken with ideas of immortality and how they might be remembered. Yet he believes that in modern life we\u2019re not at all savvy about the long-term consequences of impulsive decisions. He points to Andrea Benitez, the young Mexican woman who recently ran afoul of social media when she proudly and publicly wrote about getting her father to shut down a restaurant she considered didn\u2019t treat her with enough deference. \u201cNow she\u2019s ‘Lady Profeco,’ essentially Lady Macbeth,\u201d says Enriquez of the girl, who\u2019s been roundly trashed within social media, even the subject of an article\u00a0in\u00a0The N<\/em><\/a>ew York Times<\/a><\/i>.<\/p>\n

Enriquez is not arguing that Ms. Benitez should have been free to exploit her father\u2019s status. Neither is he saying that the solution is to swear off social media for good. Rather, he\u2019s advocating a path of conscious tolerance. \u201cWe\u2019re demanding that young people be responsible for stuff that lasts for a long time,\u201d he says. \u201cFolks should pay attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

But isn\u2019t Enriquez just being old school, I ask? Sure, he and I might be horrified by the idea of every last thoughtless jape of our younger selves being captured and broadcast to a virtual audience of millions. But, well, it wasn\u2019t. Why does he think those growing up in a new status quo won’t simply figure out the best way to manage the deluge? Might not society mores shift, so that what he sees as a permanent stain might in fact be as fleeting as a temporary tattoo? \u201cI do wonder,” he allows. “If all our lives become transparent, if you actually get a full picture of the good and the bad of someone sitting next to you in church, how would our societal norms change?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know that there\u2019s one answer,” he adds. “I\u2019d like to think we\u2019d be more tolerant, but often when things are exposed we clamp down and deem something unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

In other words, it\u2019s the grey areas we should watch for, and we should foster open conversation about the impact of our media on our actions and behavior. The solution isn\u2019t to deny digital, though heaven knows there are plenty of such ideas in the works. (Enriquez mentions these glasses designed to impede facial identification software<\/a>.) Instead, we must be thoughtful, smart, and conscious of the decisions we\u2019re making, the tradeoffs we’re making, and the potential consequences of our actions. To apply (whisper it) common sense. That\u2019s a concept that\u2019s as old as the ancient Greeks \u2026 and one that\u2019ll never go out of style.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019m not arguing that this stuff shouldn\u2019t exist,\u201d says Juan Enriquez. \u201cI\u2019m saying that precisely because this stuff is so powerful, we should be careful and think about what we\u2019re doing, instead of treating it like a lark, thinking if we post something at 2am that no one will care.\u201d The Boston-based entrepreneur and many-time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7680,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-655757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7680"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655757"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655757\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}