Every day, we publish an impressive amount of content on social networks. It is estimated, for photos alone, there are more than 3 billion every 24 hours. An enormous mass that represents, taken individually, our digital identity, the way in which we decide to represent ourselves to the world on the web. An identity of which traces remain, even if we change, we grow, we evolve.
According to research conducted by Kaspersky on 8,500 people residing in 11 European countries, around 8 out of 10 users (82%) would like to delete something they posted on the web in 2021. A percentage that rises to 86% for Generation Z, boys and girls who have lived the entire path of their existence on the Internet. Not everyone, however, knows they have the opportunity to eliminate some traces of their digital identity: 24% of Kaspersky’s interviewees believe they do not have this option available.
The consequences of a wrong post
At the basis of this desire to delete some of the previously published content, there is the perception that a wrong post on social networks can become a problem. That an error in self-representation can have long-term consequences, perhaps on a professional level. In fact, 30% of the interviewees reported having had a problem from a work point of view caused by a content published on social platforms. And almost one in two Europeans has met someone whose career has suffered the consequences of an unhappy post.
Among the most problematic contents defined are those that mock people with disabilities (38%), those against Covid-19 vaccination (34%) or those that use anti-trans language (32%). But you can get in trouble, according to the interviewees in the research, even for a simple like. For example, if placed under a post that shows animal cruelty. For 66% of Italians, the most sensitive among Europeans on this issue, a like under such a content could influence the continuation of a relationship of any kind, work or friendship.
The society of performance
Where does this fear arise? According to the philosophers Andrea Colamedici and Maura Gancitano, of the Tlon collective, we live in a “society of performance”, a formula that gives the title to one of their books released in 2019. A society in which “working time and free time are no longer really separate “. After all, as we read in the book and also emerges in Kaspersky’s research, “the employer can fire you for an idea you express on your Twitter profile or hire you for the videos you uploaded to YouTube, or for your sports interests. or spiritual, although they are outside the job you have applied for. “.
A context, favored by the explosion of social networks and the identity represented in the digital space, in which each of us becomes a performer, therefore the object of public judgment at any time. “The evaluation – write again Medici and Gancitano – does not take into consideration the history of the person and his skills, but is punctual, that is, it examines a part to judge the whole, identifies a performance with the complexity of the individual”. In this environment, the most valuable currency is reputation, which is the sum of the ratings received for each individual performance. “The existence of a person – reads the book – thus ends in his reputation, from which his vocation and the narration of his story remain outside”.