#thefutureisthefuture

Facebook. We all have a love hate with the social media titan for one reason or another. We've heard and thought of most of the possible infringements into our private lives that we so freely yield in the name of one big friendly social network. 

It's crazy to think that a mere decade ago there was no Facebook. No place to share all the photos, thoughts, relationship updates and so on and so forth. I had an account for several years before closing it down for several more and now again I have started my account back up again. Only a few months in and I am getting ready to pull the plug on Facebook once again.

I'm astonished at how the way people use Facebook has changed in the short decade it has been around. Forget the conspiracy theories about who really runs Facebook or who they sell our information to. It's all a mute point if we are giving up this information freely. The platform is still so fresh to us as a community, both on the global and local scale and we are far to short sighted to see what's coming. Since 2005 over a billion people have signed up to Facebook, 1/8 of the worlds population. Along the way these billion of us have recorded every action and thought we have had. A perfect record of our global history on such a massive scale that it is impossible to understand what the fallout will be. 

I've witnessed such personal moments between close friends or most likely people I only met once or twice. We've all read the ruthless public arguments as marriages fall apart, friendships crumble, working relationships are terminated. These have always been things for bedrooms or boardrooms, not for public consumption. How are we to forgive one another when the words that were said never go away. Those arguments are now recorded, word for word, forever. 

What is concerning to me these days is the Facebook Timeline or Lifeline. It use to begin at the time your account was activated, not anymore. If you or someone else decides to post and tag a photo of you from, say, 1976, your timeline now goes as far back as 1976. Post a photo of your first baby picture and your timeline goes back to the day of your birth. So, Facebook has begun to compile not only a very detailed history of everyone since its inception, it is now doing the same for decades long since passed. All this, for the most part is happening as of our free will. I'm more concerned about those who are being exploited and recorded without their consent or understanding of the ramifications. Our children.

My wife and I had our first child in June of 2012. We have never posted a single photo of him on Facebook or any other social media site. We have also made it very clear to our friends and family that they do NOT have our permission to do so either. The majority of these people think that we are over reacting or at least just being unreasonable and paranoid. For us it is a matter of our sons freedom and liberty. He is not our property. He is in our care. It is our responsibility to make sure that he is safe at all times from any sort of predator that may be out there. 

I'm sure that I'm not alone here, am very tired of seeing the multiple daily photos and posts about Johnny and his spaghetti incident. No one really cares. Sure the photos are cute, I've taken hundreds of photos of our little guy and am sure to annoy anyone who comes within 20 feet of my laptop. This doesn't give me the right to put them up on Facebook without his consent. If you need to 13 years of age in order to sign up and get a Facebook account, doesn't it stand to reason that tagged photos or photos in general for that matter should not be permitted if the child is under the age of 13? As is stands now, if a child 13 years from now opens a Facebook account(provided that they don't lie in order to get one younger) they will instantly have photos and a complete documentation on their life up to this point. Advertisers will know what kind of music, cloths, sports, video games, movies etc. that this child likes. Where this will lead as far as political agendas is anyone's guess. 

If a photo says 1000 words, how much has been said about a child by the time they turn one? But more importantly, how were those 1000 words read by people you may not want reading into your child's life now? How will these pictures be read in the future? What may it cost your child one day if there is a photo of him at a political rally sitting on your shoulders? If there is a photo of him as a child at the Museum of Modern Art, or touring a Sikh temple on a school field trip? History does have a habit of repeating itself, imagine how many people would have died for having photos of themselves hanging out with a Jewish family? We've all seen the benefits of social media with the events of The Arab Spring, but don't think for one second that governments all around the world didn't learn from that experience. When will the next massive public protest be organized by not the people but a desperate government. When will twitter and Facebook be used to lure tens of thousands of people into a public square only to be gunned down?

Let's give our children the chance to make their own paths in life. Let them remain anonymous for as long as possible. Let them be free as possible from persecution or judgments saddled upon them by choices that we their parents made. We have no clue what the future holds. If the last decade is any indicator, it will be the most momentous decade in recorded history. So before we full embrace these technologies, should we not first try as a community to fully understand their reach and power?