Click Click! Gotcha!

It's been said that the Internet is written in pen, not pencil.

If you're online, you've probably experienced the "oops-I-clicked-send/post/poke-before-I-was-ready-and-now-that-poorly-written-email-exists forever-in-cyberspace" syndrome. We've all watched Anthony Weiner recently roast his promising career with a few ill chosen snapshots...pics that now digitally exist FOREVER.
The permanency of digital communication is something we're all still adjusting to, and it can be uncomfortable.

Odds are though, that we have more to worry about than just a mis-sent missal, or even a breach of our bank accounts or "identity".
As our world becomes digitized, especially  through ubiquitous social media,  it's likely that every single one of us will wish within our lifetime that we had read that "Privacy" policy a little bit closer when we signed up to connect to... whatever.

It's worth taking 5 minutes to watch the BBC's story about facial recognition and the end of anonymity.
Though I've heard (mostly on Boing Boing and Motherboard) the big pieces of the story before, it's a succinct, street level summary of the reasons why YOU SHOULD BE SCARED SCREAMING OUT OF YOUR EVERLOVING WITS EVERY TIME ANYONE PUTS YOUR FACE ANYWHERE ON THE INTERNET.

With my simmering paranoia and hysteria out of the way, let me comment briefly on a couple things as you go watch the video:

1) I started with this, but the Internet is here to stay--and what you do on it is permanent. Like it or not, (I mostly don't), it's a fact that has few exceptions.

2) Our ability to do things has so outstripped our ability to ask the "why's", "ought's", and "should's", that even well meaning people, websites, and organizations should be considered risky. Perspective comes slowly to us mutants. We may need to wait a little while to really understand the implications of our technology on society, community and individual civil liberties.

3) Don't feel funny about stepping back sometimes from the "cutting edge". As someone who spent several years on Facebook before deleting my account to focus on my physical neighbors and community, I speak from experience. Our friends and family have been very understanding and cooperative with our sometime humorous requests to not post/tag pics of me, my wife, or our daughter online.Trust me, you won't lose out if you take a deep breath and thoughtfully examine your digital life. It may be time to cancel, unsubscribe, delete, purge, or even spend some time unplugged.

Odds are that we will never be chased by a fascist government, have our identities stolen by Uzbek hackers, or stalked by a serial killer from down the block because of our tagged social media photos. But it should give us pause. We need to examine why we're online, why we're sharing intimate life details on a public platform, why we feel the need to be more than a name or an IP address in the digital community.  I am not a Luddite. There are compelling reasons to share one's life with others online. But we need to do so intentionally, with perspective, and as choosing and dignified human beings.

We're more than faces in a crowd, more than ghosts in the machine. We're people, and we need to guard that humanity very, very carefully. We do that by thinking sharply, choosing wisely, and always being ready to meet our neighbors with a smile.

But cameras aren't neighbors.