While our technology and products have become increasingly advanced, any sense of quality and value has started to come apart in the relentless product cycle. This cycle–an insistence on new and better–has infected our media and minds as well. In our movement further into the digital frontier, we have started to leave permanence behind in favor of freshness, depth in favor of convenience. We are in danger of losing a certain fundamental sense of meaning.

There is an argument made against privacy that says someone who isn’t engaged in criminal behavior has nothing to hide. This method of thinking allowed the US government to slowly sap away our civil liberties in the wake of the 9/11 attacks–many have just accepted that trading privacy for security is acceptable and used the “nothing to hide” argument to rationalize what was, essentially, a decision based on fear. However, limiting the government’s ability to intrude in our private lives is easy compared with attempting to control how personal information spreads on the internet via gossip. Rather than spies or wiretaps, gossip is often gathered by those we trust and spread online by people who don’t understand or appreciate the potential for the damage it can do. In reality, privacy is about much more than concealing wrongdoing.

More and more teens pour out their hearts into the digital blackness and spend their time with socially networked acquaintances. Secrets that they would hate for their parents to see are only a Google search away. In a digital world designed around speed, convenience, and ego, they will loose a sense of what constitutes a strong relationship and their ability to empathize will suffer. At a time when it is easier than ever to find a reason to hate someone, they will be more likely than ever to be willing to hate. How can we–as parents, as developers, as netizens–put a stop to this progression?

‘Hard words break no bones’ is a phrase that has been in use since the Renaissance, but things may be changing. Teens are putting a great deal of value into terms: names, labels, and the power of specialized language. In a world built entirely on words, the old adage is being revised: sticks and stones will never hurt you, but words may break your heart.

The Future of Reputation by Daniel Solove
Description [from Amazon]:
Teeming with chatrooms, online discussion groups, and blogs, the Internet offers previously unimagined opportunities for personal expression and communication. But there’s a dark side to the story. A trail of information fragments about us is forever preserved on the Internet, instantly available in a Google search. A [...]

If you believe Steve Jobs, then reading good, old-fashioned paper books is becoming a dead practice. I, for one, love books. I love how they feel, how they smell, and I love the process of taking long periods of time to explore and absorb ideas. That’s why, as a regular feature here at erelevant, I’d like to invite you to read some interesting books with us as part of a virtual reading group!

By DAVID CRARY AP National Writer
NEW YORK Feb 27, 2007 (AP)— Today’s college students are more narcissistic and self-centered than their predecessors, according to a comprehensive new study by five psychologists who worry that the trend could be harmful to personal relationships and American society.
“We need to stop endlessly repeating ‘You’re special’ and having children [...]

Elaine pointed out this short piece by journalist and cyberpunk author Bruce Sterling. Its evocatively disjointed, almost stream-of-conscious narrative imagines a teen world in the near future where electronic media and technology have taken the next step in saturating daily life. Imagine helicopter parents meet ubiquitous wireless/cellular connectivity, RFID tagging, and databases not [...]

Coming to us via a newspaper blog (?), here’s a piece about how the Princeton Review rankings affected one high school student’s search.
The result is, as the Princeton Review says, “that which a college admissions viewbook by its very nature can never really achieve—an uncensored view of life at a particular college.” And they’re right. [...]

College marketers are accustomed to putting their prospects under a microscope and taking them apart with market research. Imagine looking through the lens of the finely tuned instrument of demographic examination and seeing the eye of a blazing intellect staring right back at you?
Imagine a rising high school senior who not only researches colleges [...]

From ‘A Softer World’

There is an argument made against privacy that says someone who isn’t engaged in criminal behavior has nothing to hide. This method of thinking allowed the US government to slowly sap away our civil liberties in the wake of the 9/11 attacks–many have just accepted that trading privacy for security is acceptable and used the “nothing to hide” argument to rationalize what was, essentially, a decision based on fear. However, limiting the government’s ability to intrude in our private lives is easy compared with attempting to control how personal information spreads on the internet via gossip. Rather than spies or wiretaps, gossip is often gathered by those we trust and spread online by people who don’t understand or appreciate the potential for the damage it can do. In reality, privacy is about much more than concealing wrongdoing.

Internet-based abuse (‘cyberbullying’) and privacy / relationship issues are still massively misunderstood. The complexities of online sociality are probably the biggest ‘generational divide’ between modern teens and adults. To help put it in perspective a bit, here are some numbers…

I HAVE A MYSPACE ACCOUNT!!1!