Personal accountability is something that many people fear is being lost in today’s fast paced, transparent society.
With the rise of the internet, people have been able to more easily hide their actions and interests from their close friends and family. Face to face interaction is also becoming less and less common, making deception and dishonesty easier and more prevalent.
In recent years however, the internet has evolved to combat some of the original avenues for secrecy and ambiguity that it once provided. The main reason for the change: Social Media.
Internet users are no longer completely anonymous. Almost all of us have at least one form of online profile (Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) and as a global society, we’re becoming more and more comfortable with our real world and digital world actions being posted to our profiles.
Although we can control who can see our profiles and most of what is posted to our profiles, recent updates to web applications like Facebook, have increased the amount of automation in recording users’ activities.
Many people fear that these updates and the evolution of social media will lead to the ultimate demise of privacy – and they may be right – but is there any way to stop it?
If you don’t want people to find something out about you in real life, what do you do? If you can, you avoid performing the action to begin with and, if you can’t do that, you certainly don’t talk about it!
The same concept works with social media!
If it is much easier for people to find out what you’re doing, who you’re doing it with and what type of overall person you are, you will be more conscious of your actions. By thinking more about the consequences of your actions, your personal accountability will increase. This is the greatest contribution social media is making to modern society!
We’ve all heard stories of the couple that broke up because of Facebook. Somebody cheated on their spouse and then pictures were posted to Facebook or an incriminating status update was posted and before you knew it, Facebook had completely destroyed the marriage!
“With great power, comes great responsibility.”
– François-Marie Arouet
Wait a minute here though – Did Facebook really destroy the marriage? Was it really Facebook’s fault?
Or was it the fault of the unfaithful spouse that cheated on their husband or wife?
I think you can see where this is going now.
Although we may lose some of our privacy with social media, we may also become more accountable members of society and better people as a whole.
Freedom is something that is very important to me as I’m sure it is to many of my readers. That being said, if by losing some privacy, I can increase the overall standard of living of my life and provide my children with the freedom to live in a more honest and safe World, then it is worth it to me.
The social media revolution has really just begun and there are obviously some improvements that need to be made but I truly believe it can lead to a society where personal accountability is paramount.
If everyone is just slightly more responsible for their own actions, then all of our lives will improve.
