The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article about the future of our children’s “digital reputation” by Google Chief Executive, Eric Schmidt. He has argued that our children may be forced to change their identity and their name in order to avoid being associated with the digital footprint that they left as a teenager.
The CEO predicts, that every young person may also one day, be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.
“I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time,” Schmidt said.
He is speaking about the photos our teenagers put on Facebook, that they think are ‘funny’ – antics at parties, and comments they make which could indicate their political, social or ethical views. Your photos put up without the permission of the photographee. In a world where people are fired or simply not hired every day over Facebook status updates, it’s hard to argue the point. Our teens need to understand that sometimes once something is up there, it’s up there and they lose control of it.
