Our president just posted some wild pictures from a party last night on Facebook.
No, I’m not talking about Barack Obama’s escapades at a presidential soiree, I’m talking about the president who doesn’t even know he or she will become president yet.
For the uninitiated into the frequently terrifying realm of 21st century adolescent life, the fact is Facebook is ubiquitous in the lives of a growing number of Americans, particularly teenagers. Therefore, there is a likelihood that a future occupant of the Oval Office is currently posting status updates about his late-night escapades that would make Ozzy Osbourne swoon. In the world of the Internet, there are no secrets. A picture there speaks more than a thousand words — it is forever.
It’s not that teenagers doing stupid things is a new phenomenon. However, today’s youth feel an incessant need to document every second of their lives, swiftly uploading them onto the Web for all prying eyes to enjoy. Electronic records are, unfortunately, devilishly difficult if not impossible to erase completely, as duplicating data on computers is as easy as the click of a button. Pictures of Michael Phelps with bong in hand ricochet around cyberspace, a constant specter of an unwise decision.
Whereas previous generations were afforded the comfort of their idiocy in private, today’s adolescents must deal with the immortalization of their actions on LCD screens around the world, all because of voluntary relinquishment of privacy spurred by an inadequate understanding of future repercussions.
The implications of this are frightening, to say the least, and extend far beyond the teenage crowd. Whether you like it or not, Big Brother has already set up house in America. Every time you run a red light, a video camera is there to snap your license plate. . Vast portions of the country are viewable to minute detail on Google maps.
These are natural consequences of a technologically interconnected world. And, in fact, this constant monitoring of our lives by our government and countless other forces has hardly received the large-scale outrage it deserves.
But before you grab your tinfoil hat and cower in your basement, consider the positives as well: Uploading an unflattering picture to Facebook may well cement its permanence in electronic limbo, but prior to the Internet, rapidly sharing an impossibly large database of information with a large audience was an impossibility.
Not only is every facet of our own world available for public consumption, but we also attempt voyeurism of others at every available opportunity as well.
Reality shows like “Big Brother” and “Survivor” detail intimate moments in the lives of everyday people, blurring the line of entertainment and sanctified personal territory. These shows enjoy great success, capitalizing on interpersonal drama and antagonism of unpleasant “characters.”
Many contestants willingly discard all privacy in hope of finding their 15 minutes of fame, even if it means succumbing to personal humiliation in front of a national audience.
Should fame and self-image really be valued more than dignity and respect? Is it really necessary to post your entire life on the Internet or allow your privacy to be invaded on television for everyone from Grandma to that creepy guy who lives down the street to see?
When our lives are branded a commercial product, they are nothing more than a hollow facsimile of our souls. I don’t mean that uploading a picture on your Facebook account is a harbinger of Armageddon, but few people understand the magnitude of the World Wide Web’s durability.
A lifetime’s worth of respectability can vanish with the click of a mouse, constantly providing a harmful reminder of not only how losing our privacy can sacrifice our humanity, but also how technology enables one small incident to be forever enshrined in history.
Tom Roberts (addictedtosemicolons@ ) is a senior at Araphaoe High School in Centennial and full-time smart aleck.
