The Case of the Missing Phone and Other Pearls of Wisdom: Shirky I

True Story:

According to Clay Shirky's book, "Here Comes Everybody", a girl in New York is given a misplaced cell phone, which she gladly accepts, (which now classifies it as stolen) and thinks she's made off like a bandit. However, as the story unfolds further throughout the first pages of Shirky's book we find out that Sasha is actually not going to get off without a hitch. Enter the World Wide Web.

Ah yes, the World Wide Web. A place where people can connect with one another, meet, mingle, fall in love, and get exposed as liars and thieves. Here we run into the problem of making your life public via the web.

As it turns out, Evan (another character in the saga of the missing cell phone) creates a website dedicated to the tracking down of his friend, Ivanna's, phone. This page creates quite a following and quite a stir, ultimately leading to the eventual recovery of Ivanna's phone.

So what is the moral of the story? It's not necessarily that if you lose something or think someone has stolen something of yours that you need to go send out a virtual search party or dedicate virtual "lost" posters; rather, it is that you must be aware of what information is available about you online and who is viewing it.

So often we carelessly post images or various types of text online without thinking about who is viewing it. In the case of the missing cell phone, Evan was able to do some good by using the web to gain a following big enough to spur the NYPD on to actually dealing with his case. Others are less fortunate.

"Human being are social creatures -- not occasionally or by accident but always" (Shirky 14). This is true for the Internet as well. We, as humans, are drawn to the social interactions of the Internet such as social media spaces and web pages that allow interactions such as conversation. When you write something somewhere on the internet it is published there and stays there potentially even after the work or comment is "deleted". How can this be an unfortunate occurrence for people?

The age old example displays it best. Suppose you are employed, even happy with your job. But you happen to post something on your social media site that explains how you can't stand your boss or how you were out doing drugs over the weekend. . .whatever the case may be. Then suppose that your boss or someone at your place of employment somehow runs across this comment which inevitable results in you losing your job.

Moral of the story: don't steal from people and beware what you post on the World Wide Web for all of the world to see.