Goodbye user-names
I was on the Underground the other day on a very long journey and due to the ageing battery on my iPhone had to resort to good old people watching.
Sitting opposite me was a group of guys who had obviously come back from a holiday (I was on my way back from the airport). And opposite them was a very attractive young lady. One of the guys started talking to the young lady and after all the usual conversation stuff it came to the obligatory exchange of details. So, how do we exchange details with people we just met, well the options are:
- Phone number
- Email address
- myspace/internet handle/page
- Old school snail mail address
Well, what happened next some may think signifies nothing at all and wouldn’t bat an eye lid at it. It made me stop and think. The guy asked “Are you on Facebook?” To which the girl said “Yes!” and they exchanged their… names? Not some long Internet handle or string of numbers, just their names. I don’t know whether it’s that important but I think it shows how the Internet and the overall way in which we interact with each other is changing. We are moving away from an Internet alias we give ourselves and back to our names and more personal information. This could be good because we may get more in touch with each other and it can be bad because obviously our information can be stolen and used against us.
What ever it means, it’s a change and it’s happening around us as we speak. So watch this space.
I’m not sure if I’d want to put a man I just met on my FB,exchanging digits may have been a better plan.
Yeah, I agree. I wouldn’t do it myself but I think it might be a sign of how we are moving away from our alias’ and towards ourselves. I’ve seen this happen a few times and being at University I do it quite a bit. Of course when ever I give details away I’m always careful. But as you said, digital details are ’safer’ but again they are open to abuse with people giving false names and details etc.