It Takes a Village to Find a Phone

Clay Shirky

My natural instinct to respond first to this article about the repercussions of Evan Guttman’s ability to wield social media in a successful bid to retrieve a misappropriated cellphone, is to consider strategies to help prevent my students from inadvertently becoming future Sasha’s, the teenage girl upon whom the weight of the internet fell. My second instinct is to go online and scrub the read/write web of anything with my name on it, simply because the very idea that a potential audience of anonymous millions exists to scrutinize my writings or my image or my life is appalling.

I understand that the read/write web has bought change to how we communicate. To some extent it allows communication to greatly exceed the worth of the information being communicated. If Sasha can be tracked  down or even tracked because of the tools that are now in the hands of all, then I, too, or my children could be similarly tracked down. It’s a horrid thought. Not that there is any reason why I or my children should be tracked down.

If there is any lesson to be taken from this story about the lost phone into the classroom, it is this: “You students are connected to the rest of the world whether you like it or not, whether you are aware of it or not, whether you want it or not. Be careful. Don’t threaten anyone or be abusive. And use spell-check, at the very least because you will be judged on how well you write pretty much anything. Remember that all of your texts and emails and blog posts are potentially forever, and that anything you say can/could/will be used against you in the event that something goes wrong.  Be prepared to have conversations with strangers despite what your parents told you, don’t divulge any information that could identify you, although it’s probably too late for that; use the highest privacy settings and even then be careful about who you share your personal details with. Play nice, have fun, and don’t forget to read a book once in a while.”

And that, really is all I have to say about that. If anyone wishes to comment on this posting, please note the time it was posted. You may like to read it to the sound of an automatic dishwasher in order to receive the same sensory/rhetorical effect, and it would help if you were in the last week of a master’s program in order to understand why I just can’t write anymore. Too much to do and not enough time. Please be nice. Thank you.

PS. It took less than five seconds to find the author of the book this chapter was taken from, using any seven word quote taken at random. Scary.