What if, instead, in ten years those teens-now-adults used those tweets and their lingering presence in search results as a teachable moment?
Let’s promote the idea that those embarrassing tweets, or anyone’s embarrassing digital dirt, can be used to validate identity change and growth.
we are equally celebrating the cultural norm that expects perfection, normalization, and unchanging behavior. What if more people wore past identities more proudly? We could erode the norm of identity consistency, a norm no one lives up to anyways, and embrace change and growth for its own sake
it will encourage an understanding of identity as more fluid. This re-understanding might be more tolerant of the non-normal and accepting of change and difference.
hat a person isn’t just what one is but a non-linear process of becoming rife with starts and stops and wrong turns may grow to be increasingly obvious.
Speaking these words can be a way to commiserate with colleagues, or they can become “in jokes” among friends. These exchanges can be OK when we are face-to-face with others, as we have body language and voice inflections to help us understand the meaning and context behind the statements. Online is a different situation, however.
Suddenly my Twitter stream was a teacher’s lounge.
if we have an online presence, we must be responsible in what we say or write. This seems simple, doesn’t it? Nevertheless, we forget that we are not in the company of friends when we say or write the things we do. Almost anyone can read our words, and they might misunderstand our intent.