The New digital Age
(Book excerpt from The New digital Age by Schmidt Eric and Cohen Jared)
“Identity will be the most valuable commodity for citizens in the future, and it will exist primarily online. Online experience will start with birth, or even earlier. Periods of people’s lives will be frozen in time, and easily surfaced for all to see. In the future, our identities in everyday life will come to be defined more and more by our virtual activities and associations.”
“Your online identity in the future is unlikely to be a simple Facebook page; instead it will be a constellation of profiles, from every online activity, that will be verified and perhaps even regulated by the government.”
“Parent-teacher associations will advocate for privacy and security classes to be taught alongside sex-education classes in their children’s schools. Such classes will teach students to optimise their privacy-and-security settings and train them to become well versed in the dos and don’ts of the virtual world.”
“We’ll also see a proliferation of businesses that cater to privacy and reputation concerns. This industry exists already, with companies like Reputation.com using a range of proactive and reactive tactics to remove or dilute unwanted content from the Internet. During the 2008 economic crash, it was reported that several Wall Street bankers hired online reputation companies to minimise their appearance online, paying up to $10,000 per month for the service. In the future, this industry will diversify as the demand explodes, with identity managers becoming as common as stockbrokers and financial planners……..A new realm of insurance will emerge, too. Companies will offer to insure your online identity against theft and hacking, fraudulent accusations, misuse or appropriation.”
Gazing through the crystal ball
- Within the four walls’ is an outmoded warning; there are no walls except our own mind. We must be very careful about what we say over the phone, in our houses and, of course, text messages, Facebook, emails, etc. Everything is a record as we go.
- An uttered word cannot be taken back, quite literally, in the digital world. A deleted message from a social media platform is never really deleted off all digital storages. Be very careful.
- Most pertinently, you cannot fake your personality for long. Make good and ethical behaviour your second nature.
