According to Kim-Mai Cutler in TechCrunch.com, social networks like Facebook have been all about parading your
individuality, but that’s beginning to feel a bit passé. A new app
called Secret, which launched last week, allows you to “share thoughts
with friends without revealing who you are.” The app’s founder compares
its appeal to that of “a masquerade ball”—“you know who’s on the guest
list, but you don’t know who is saying what.”
The anonymity encourages
users to share things that “are a little bit more vulnerable, insecure,
emotional, sad, goofy, or angry than what you might see on Facebook or
Instagram, where people are trying to groom images of picture-perfect
lives.”
We seem to have somehow come full circle: “It is kind of absurd
that people would need a mobile app to be more vulnerable or self-aware
with their friends.”
The “theme of illicitness” that runs through Secret is part of its current allure, said John Herrman in BuzzFeed.com.
The app’s promotion of anonymity is a direct response to today’s
dominant Internet culture. Since Facebook became the big player, “real
identity” has been the Internet’s default setting; now people are
getting tired of that, and “anonymity is the deviation.”
The rise of
apps like Secret, Whisper, and Snapchat is clearly an outgrowth of the
growing resentment over the way Facebook owns and exploits our online
identities. They’re meant to challenge “the notion that the Internet
should record and host everything that’s posted to it into perpetuity.”
Just don’t believe these apps will make you truly anonymous, said Selena Larson in ReadWrite.com.
“It’s more difficult than you’d think to completely erase yourself from
the Internet.” There are steps you can take, however, to “remove
yourself” from the incessant scrutiny of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn,
and Google+.
First, download all the data associated with your social
networking accounts, including archives of your status updates or
contacts, then track down the “Deactivate” or “Close” options. Facebook
makes this trickier than other networks; the company “doesn’t want to
lose your data,” so actually deleting your account requires you to fill
out a form and tell Facebook why you’re leaving.
If you have
long-forgotten accounts, a browser extension called “Just Delete Me” can
help jog your memory, providing a directory of account deletion links
for more than 300 sites. But you should be aware that “parts of your
digital life will be chiseled into eternity—and there’s nothing you can
do about it.”
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