Social Media: A fundamental change? Not Really

I was faced with a blog today ( http://davefleet.com/2009/03/personal-professional-line/ ) that asked where the line is between personal and professional online.  Great question and good comments but…….I have had the discussion many times about social media and personal/professional behavior.  More importantly, about the level of openness in general and what is acceptable behavior, personal or professional. 

I have been bombarded by people telling me social media is a fundamental change in how people relate and the next generation will be very different because of the networks. I recall vividly that my generation was going to change the world with openness and love and universal caring, being true to ourselves.  The anthems of a generation included such lines as “Almost cut my hair” and songs as poignant as Revolution. (So I am from the CSNY and Beatles generation).  We asked the same questions being asked today, except about what the impact might be of tv catching people at demonstrations , being seen with the hippies on the corner, photos of sitting on a stoop smoking a cigarette, sharing experiences that could ruin your life in a world much smaller than todays and the answer is that it was better to not become well known for doing inappropriate things, as much as most of you (smile) do them at some point.

(Note:Please indulge my following generalization, to all of them there are exceptions, I know a few I could spend another entry on).

The interesting fact is that every generation is more open and shares more hopes, dreams, troubles, challenges, inappropriate behavior with more people more casually in their 20′s than in their 30′s and less as they age. Before there were social networks their was the telephone, then everyone had a computer to share things on IM, then texting , behavior didn’t change.  The social networks are no different,  MYSPACE is more open than Facebook, which shares more info than the next generation will.  This is true because the people that use it have less life learned caution about what they share and both the risk and the value of that sharing. 

Personality doesn’t change, being true to who you are doesn’t change, you just don’t share as much with as many without really knowing them as you age.

This is unlikely to change as it is how we mature emotionally, less need for everyone to like us, less need for constant reassurance we are OK, a need for deeper and more intimate relationships with fewer and more trustworthy people.  It is human to react over a lifetime that way, no amount of 140 character chat vehicles will change humans that much. Unless, as I have been told many times, us old guys just don’t “get it”, something I clearly remember telling my father.

Many of the consequences assigned to social media are not new, it is just a different school quad, coffee shop, girls night out bar, company softball game (others?) where people of  different ages socialize much as they always have with the same risks and rewards.  Only with a level of permanence that requires more diligence in privacy protection which is the real question we should be discussing.