I’m curious what Mark Zuckerburg will have to say in his SXSW keynote address about privacy issues. On the heels of some recent press about the difficulty in deleting your information from Facebook, the Berkman Center’s Digital Natives blog asks an interesting question: Has Facebook changed our conceptions of privacy?
It’s worth pondering. Has our society’s concept of privacy changed? Are Facebook and other Web 2.0 applications responsible for this? Or is this the by-product of a generation that’s grown up reality television and a new kind of personal openness in the Information Age ?
I’m also intrigued by an entry on SXSW’s Interactive Hub about a documentary on virtual worlds that Pure West Films will be premiering at SXSW:
Second Skin takes an intimate look at computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging genre of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs). World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest allow millions of users to simultaneously interact in virtual spaces. Second Skin introduces us to couples who have fallen in love without meeting, disabled players who have found new purpose, addicts, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, wealthy online entrepreneurs and legendary guild leaders – all living in a world that doesn’t quite exist.
I’ll definitely be checking that one out.
Oh, and I suppose I should introduce myself.
My name is Fazia Rizvi. I’ve been active online since 1988, (yes, you read that date right) did web site and web-related software design and development in academia for more than a decade, and now I’m a graduate student of anthropology, studying culture online. I blog on these subjects at Bits and Bytes. I’m attending SXSW, hoping to meet others doing academic research on online communities, virtual worlds, social networking or any other aspect of “cyber culture”. I will be going to every social panel I can manage to squeeze into!
Fazia Rizvi
Permalink
This film looks really interesting. I’m definitely planning on working it into my schedule.
Permalink
I think society’s conceptions of privacy have changed. But I’m not sure if sites like Facebook and Web 2.0 apps are responsible for this change. I think this new generation of internet users have an immunity to privacy issues because they’ve grown up in a society that has glorified reality television and the over night celebrity. Its amazing what kids will post on their mySpace these days with little adult supervision. It’s like they want anyone and everyone knowing exactly who they are and what they are doing at this very minute. They use MySpace to show everylittle piece of their personality and identity, naive of the consequences of sexual preditors and idenity theft.