A new study by the Pew Internet and American Life Project suggests people are curating their public personas in order to massage their digital reputations.
The study is timely, released Wednesday as Facebook tries to wake from its nightmare privacy slumber by offering new ways users can gain and maintain control over information available about them.
The Pew study suggests a trend towards greater awareness that our digital lives — and especially our socially networked lives — are primary drivers for others to figure out who we are and what we’re about.
Reclaiming online reputation is starting, happily, with younger demographics that have the most to gain by doing so (read: those whose future employers look them up online).
Young adults, perhaps out of necessity, are much more active curators of their online identities when compared with older adults. When they change privacy settings, delete tags and comments, and request that information about them be removed, they are demonstrating a desire to exert control over the content they share and the tide of information that others post about them online.
The good news is that people are getting better at learning how to manage and control online privacy and digital reputation.
The better news is that with so many online, there’ll still be fodder to wonder over.
After all and despite all else, the Internet is still a giant repository of human folly collected, archived, remixed, liked, tweeted, buzzed and reblogged for others to see.
