One of my favourite subjects is the unintended consequences of technology. Linked to this is what some people call the social aspects of computing.Internet-users now have to strategise how to convey themselves in cyberspace –something called ‘impression management’. The issue has become complex because people tend to have an array of digital personas and personalities and these need to be tailored to different audiences ranging from co-workers to family and friends. In other words, how do you edit your online identity? People have been styling themselves for multiple audiences for years, but the issue has become more urgent and complex due to the growth of social networking sites and online dating sites like Facebook and Match.com. Additionally, the Internet age is relatively new and people are struggling to understand what is acceptable and what’s not. One intriguing finding, for example, is that the attractiveness of your friends on sites like Facebook directly affects the way that other people perceive you, according to Joseph Walther, a professor of communication and telecommunications at Michigan State University (US). Other studies have found that the length of email messages can be a cue as to how desperate someone is, as are the number of times people log onto sites (too often is again seen as desperate). The time that email messages are sent also indicates something about the personality of the sender. As to whether or not people lie about themselves online the answer is ‘of course’.For example, in the UK a photo chain called Snappy Snaps has reported a 500% + increase in requests for retouching services recently. The reason for this, apparently, is that people want to look as good as possible on online dating and social networking sites. So is this deceptive or nefarious practice doing anyone any harm? Probably not. Most people are just trying to stand out from the crowd and any gross misrepresentation will more often than not be found out by close friends or co-workers that frequent the same sites. Future predictions? One thing we might see is the development of companies that help create, maintain or delete online personas. Equally, these digital providers could act as some kind of trust mechanism, vouching for the authenticity of some digital people while conducting ‘truth checks’ on suspected cyber frauds.

In 2000, referring to the merger between AOL and Time Warner, the President and Chief Operating Officer of AOL, Robert Pittman, allegedly said: ‘This is the perfect “one plus one equals three” opportunity’. In other words, around the start of the new millennium we collectively decided to ditch the basic principles of physics and economics and attach ourselves instead to a new idea that was called ‘dream it and you can make it happen’. It was a period of over-leveraged, over-extended and unsustainable growth that looked good on paper because things still went up but no longer came down. Even the concept of human freedom was redefined by linking it to notions of speed, convenience and mobility rather than with the old idea of acting with minimal interference from others. Microsoft, for instance, ran a campaign with the slogan ‘Where do you want to go today?’ But it’s turned out that this was not a question but an instruction. The question implied that there was an endless array of destinations and where you went was totally up to you. As big fat lies go, this turned out to be a whopper. Sensible answers to the question might have included; ‘Back to bed’, ‘What business is it of yours Bill?’ and ‘Nowhere, I’m happy where I am’. Instead we got seduced by speed and connectivity. We started to view ‘things’ like documents; videos and screens as ‘places’ and we stayed awake half the night doing things that should have been done during the daytime. This new freedom was intoxicating. We were free to work at home. We were free to be busy, juggling our various electronic lives and personas all of the time. But a slowdown has begun.

Evidence is forming to confirm what many of us have suspected for years: multitasking, together with complexity and constant connectivity, is sliding us towards stupidity and making us slightly mad. Our frenzied lives, the pressure to be ‘friends’ with people we hardly know, all points to the inevitability of some kind of ‘correction’ or counter-trend. Scientists using functional magnetic resonance imaging, for example, have found that the constant ‘switching’ required to multi-task effectively is damaging some of our higher-level brain functions, especially those related to memory and learning. In other words, we can cope with doing two things at once but we often can’t remember what we’ve done or how we did it. Worse, some studies suggest that multi-tasking increases stress-related hormones like adrenaline and cortisol that prematurely age our bodies through what’s called biochemical friction. Time, then, to stop picking Blackberries and to start multi-quitting.