Postman and Weingartner's (1969)

Clock Metaphor

The Clock: Speed of Technological Change

The video above is a visual representation of Postman and Weingartner's clock metaphor representing the speed of technological change. As we can see technology has up and moved itself in a real big hurry.

 

You may ask, what does that have to do with wiping away the lustre of social media? The clock metaphor extends to the world of social media. For example, Facebook was launched in 2004. At the time, only students at Harvard were allowed to join. Later that same year other universities were allowed in. And by 2006, according to Wikipedia, they allowed any person over the age of 13 with a valid email address to join. How many 13 year olds read the privacy settings? How many of YOU read the privacy settings?



And this brings us to the crux of what the video is meant to represent. Not only does technology constantly and rapidly change, but the interfaces of social media change as well (who remembers friendster, myspace, etc.?). We also experience an ever increasing pace of change in regards to the privacy settings that these interfaces offer.

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As a consumer, user, and participant of social media you need to understand, at the very least, what it means to share your personal information; to understand what's behind the the shiny beautiful exterior that you interact with, the code and its elements and to understand that privacy really does matter.



To help out our fellow users, we have created this webpage to inform y'all. We have also created what we're calling Personal PR Guidelines. These guidelines are meant to help us slow down and reflect on the things we put "out there". Since corporations have social media guidelines, shouldn't you have one as well?

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Reference:

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Postman, N., and Weingartner, C. (1969). Teaching as a Subversive Activity. New York, NY: Dell Publishing Co., Inc.