> At that point, I think it's plausible that people will adopt radically different attitudes towards online sharing.
That's a fairly tame prediction. Most of the benefit we get from keeping secrets is either temporary (I don't want my boss to know I'm looking for another job; I don't want my wife to know I'm having an affair) or only benefits us if everyone else keeps the same secrets so it becomes a taboo (I'm gay; I don't believe in God; I have embarrassing sexual fetishes; I have fringe political beliefs). The first kind we don't care about keeping after death unless we're especially vain and famous enough people would care, and the second kind is only work keeping secret if everyone else keeps it secret.
I can't imagine a huge backlash against sharing and social networking once it becomes culturally engrained; instead, insistence on privacy will be seen as suspicious and eccentric.
I only have anecdotal evidence but my observation has been that the set of things people decide to share is motivated by the facade they want to create. Once all that stuff gets analyzed in the aggregate, future historians will be able to paint a more complete picture of people's lives. My prediction depends on how ugly that picture turns out to be.
Ugly is culturally relative. Fifty years ago, people would be horrified to find out how many people were gay. Today, we're horrified to find out that gay people felt the need to stay in the closet.
Agreed, 'ugly' is culturally relative. I'm interested in what happens when cultural norms change a lot in the span of 20 years yet everyone's real history is public domain.
That's a fairly tame prediction. Most of the benefit we get from keeping secrets is either temporary (I don't want my boss to know I'm looking for another job; I don't want my wife to know I'm having an affair) or only benefits us if everyone else keeps the same secrets so it becomes a taboo (I'm gay; I don't believe in God; I have embarrassing sexual fetishes; I have fringe political beliefs). The first kind we don't care about keeping after death unless we're especially vain and famous enough people would care, and the second kind is only work keeping secret if everyone else keeps it secret.
I can't imagine a huge backlash against sharing and social networking once it becomes culturally engrained; instead, insistence on privacy will be seen as suspicious and eccentric.