Lately, I’ve been focusing on Baby Boomers, and even managed to anger and insult one of this prestigious generation. Now, I’ll turn my attention to Generation Y, also known as the millennials, digital natives or the MySpace/Facebook generation.
I realize that some don’t like this broad sweeping characterizations, but it’s important to look at the larger changes, we all realize that each individual is unique and different. Still with me? Let’s move forward and explore together.
I was speaking to a crowded room at Sun Microsystems a few weeks ago, and I posed this question to the room:
[Who has more information about Generation Y: Facebook or the US Government?]
I polled the room, and there was an overwhelming show of hands for Facebook being the dominant data holder. Next, I gave the example of my friend Teresa Valdez Klein (Pic: who I just saw in NY last week, and let her know about this upcoming post), who is an avid Facebook user and representative of Generation Y. She was an original Facebook user, she was a member while still in college. She self-expresses, she connects with others, and gives her opinion on Facebook and her fabulous blog.
Data found in Facebook about Generation Y
If you’re a Facebook friend of hers (I’m fortunate to have this honor) you’ll be amazed at how much information she shares. What does Teresa list?
Demographics
Current city of residence
Former college
Dating status and preference
Birthdate (some include day, month, and year)
Political Views
Religions Views
Pictures lots of ’em.Psychographics and Interests
Next, she lists stories, pictures, media and articles that she likes, including some of her own comments
Interests (over 12 items listed for each of the following)
Favorite Music
Favorite TV Shows
Favorite Movies
Favorite Books
Favorite QuotesHer Conversations
If you’re connected to her, you can see all the interests that she has by learning from her applications and widgets on her profile page. Some people put maps to where they’ve been, ideal characteristics in a mate/job/friends, and learn about where they’ve recently been on wall comments about parties, travel, birthdays, and other comments from friends.Her Network Info
Perhaps the most valuable, is that if you’re a friend with her, you know her social graph. Then she lists all the folks she’s friends with, and if you’re connected to them you can see all of this info.
Data that we know the US Government has about Generation Y
I’m in no position to state what level of detail they have, but here’s my best guess:
What does the US Government have?
Demographics including age, sex, where you’ve lived.
Income, Tax information
Recent purchases, loans, mortgages
Marriage status
Travel status from TSA
If you were a person of interest, I’m sure they could easily focus in on you through ATM, Credit card, and cell phone activity (GPS or Cell location tracking)
Marketers drool to get this info, where members self-submit to Facebook
The interesting thing is that all of this content was self-submitted
, and while marketers are hungrily trying to give away sweepstakes and prizes to get you to register, joiners (what Forrester calls those who use social networks) opt in much of this data and more. Marketers must froth at this opportunity.
Of course, all of this leads to even more questions:
Now the real question is, does the Government have access (and use) the information available from our telecommunications companies, and/or Facebook? So what’s scarier, the fact that Generation Y and others are willing to share so much online, or the fact that others may have access to this information. If you’re a conspiracy theory buff, (I’m not)
you’d enjoy this big brother style video
Gap in Generation Ideology: Extroverts vs Introverts
Just yesterday, one of my colleagues (Gen X), who sends pictures of her baby to the local office expressed she didn’t want to bombard us with photos. I suggested she put her photos on Facebook, as it’s more of a ‘pull’ content strategy than ‘push’. She said it made sense, bit despite her knowing there are permissions and controls, it still made her uncomfortable for the “world to see”.
Back to you: Who has more information about Generation Y: Facebook or the US Government?
I’m with matt. Anyone who’s read the 911 commision report would realize that even though the government (as if it’s one entity) has access to enormous amount of data, it takes an awful lot of coordinated research, systems integration and thoughtful analysis to create useful insight. Though there are many exceptionally smart people–and maybe some not so smart people–working for US intelligence agencies, I think their systems are a bit archaic and the organizations are burdened by bureacracy, no thanks to the current administration. They’ve got years of catching up to do to focus on those activities that do not relate to big terrorist targets. My $.02
Both Facebook and the government have our personal information and both are willing to use it. The question is: are you a person of interest to them or not? They surely can’t digest all of our info unless you give them a reason to do it.
So what to do? Avoid giving any information? No, just give away a lot of it to make it more difficult for the to digest. Give more and more about your self and about all the legal and good about you.
Ahh. And never, never give away you bads and illegals unless you can proudly stand up and defend these as your rights. In other words don’t say you smoke pot unless you are willing to fight to legalize it. Don’t criticize the government unless you can stand up and defend your right to speak up. Etc.
Are you telling me the US government can’t just walk into Facebook when ever they feel like it and get what ever information they want. Now come on.