Broadcasting Me

Recently, I watched a Ted Talk by Andrew Fitzgerald titled "Adventures in Twitter Fiction." For most of the talk, Fitzgerald provided examples of the interesting ways people are experimenting with social media, especially Twitter, in order to tell stories. While I enjoyed hearing about these examples, it was something he said earlier in the talk that really intrigued me:

We are all broadcasters now

It is not that I found the statement groundbreaking. In fact, it is really just the latest version of an idea I have heard often: we are all now producers of content and designers of our digital personas. Still, something about Fitzgerald's declaration got me thinking, especially when I paired it with ideas from two other Ted Talks: "Your Online Life, Permanent As A Tattoo," by Juan Enriquez; and "After Your Final Status Update," by Adam Ostrow. 

While these two talks ultimately do not focus on the same exact idea, they agree on one thing: as human beings, we all now have to consider something that no other humans in the history of the world had to on quite the same scale--we are "broadcasters" of our selves. Meaning? With every move we make online, especially regarding social media, we provide information about ourselves that affects how people see us right now. But that's not all.

This information will also outlast us.

When we are no longer physically on this planet, our posts, tweets, pics, purchase histories, emails, videos, etc, will remain for our children, grandchildren, and successive generations to see. With this in mind, perhaps we need to take time to consider the kind of digital self we are leaving behind. As I think about my "broadcasting" from the previous week, here's what it looks like:

1. A few gift purchases on Amazon.
2. Some pictures of a family get-together on facebook and Instagram.
3. Between 5-10 G+ posts. Some for class communities and a few for a mooc in which I am participating. For one of the posts, I used YouTube Editor to create a short video about writing.
4. Roughly 150 tweets regarding education. Most of them surrounding the idea of #edjoy--a hashtag that I have asked other educators to use.
   
5. An iMovie video posted to YouTube in which I tried to remix a friend's Vine video. 

There is probably more that I am forgetting about. Here is the upshot, though. It has me thinking about my "broadcasting." Does it give an accurate sense of who I am? Have I shared ideas that I find important? Or how about this question:

If people only knew me through my "broadcasting" from the previous week, would I be happy with what it says about me?