Unintended Accountability

Ho ho ho! Xmas is right around the corner and so are a lot of resolutions. Thought I’d revise an observation I had in an earlier post about human accountability missing from our future b/c of technology. My premise was human…if you make a poor decision based on information you received through technology (a phishing scam, a Yelp review, an Amazon recommendation), are you really accountable for the poor decision or does this set a precedent that bleeds over into our day to day behavior? “Don’t blame me for your crappy meal and resulting food sickness. Yelp told me it was great.” It’s a quandary, but I think I see an unintended consequence to all of this.

Remember in school where you were always threatened with the public record that will follow you around for the rest of your life if you misbehaved? The thought made blood run cold in school children everywhere. NOT the permanent record! Ack! People got it together faster than you could say Win 7.

Nowadays it seems we are signing up willingly for the public record. And it IS following us around. And the results ain’t pretty. Two stories in particular I’ll highlight.

Facebook and Depression: The story is here, but the storyline is that a Canadian woman claimed she had lost her health benefits after her insurance company used her Facebook pictures as evidence that she was no longer depressed. It was interesting to see how it played out in social media. Many people were outraged by what they considered an egregious violation of privacy (a theme for Facebook) yet I tend to err on the other side. I’m no medical professional, not trained in healthcare, etc. but logic tells me that if you are going to post something…anything…on a social platform that visually tells a story the opposite of the one you are telling verbally, you’re guilty until proven innocent. Do I think it’s fair? Nope. Do I think it’s right? No way. But will I be explaining this concept to my children as they start to engage in social? You bet I will. If you claim unhappiness and leave a trail of glee on Facebook, then no. Your right to privacy won’t protect you. And it’s pretty much your own fault. You put it there on a public platform.

Quite a Tiger: The other story is still headlines and they keep coming. Seems Tiger Woods is the media gift that keeps on giving this holiday season. Another victim of the obvious trail technology leaves behind. And through the magic of modern technology, not only is Tiger’s wife pissed, but so are the nearly 12 mistresses as they found out…one by one…that they weren’t the only person he was cheating on his wife with. So they take their anger on the road to…where else? Social media. It’s a social Tiger fest! Tiger’s at the bottom of the food chain. All things Tiger are at the top of CNN’s newspulse, you can’t go anywhere without seeing a new text message or hearing the fateful “my wife has my cell phone” message. Tiger has single handedly launched a dozen careers in classy reality television.

Seriously, Tiger? You went to Stanford for God’s sake.

[Sidenote: You know the Heene family of Balloon Boy fame is thinking "why didn't WE think of that??"]

So you can see I’ve reversed a bit. While too much technology could potentially dumb down society by not making it necessary to think or make cognitive choices based on our own intellect, there are already a lot of stupid people out there. So I suppose I feel better.

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