Lift08 – Genevieve Bell on "Digital Deception"

Notes on the run…

Genevieve Bell is an anthropologist with a Ph.D. from Stanford. Why an anthropologist at Intel’s? Well… There are at least 30 of them there! Intel seems to want to understand what kind of a specie humans actually are.

“Technology changes faster than people do”

A few interesting figures:

• 45% of cellphone users in the UK lie about where they are
• 100% of online dating servicesin the US lie about themselves
• Men tell 20% more lies than women
• We tell somewhere btw 6-200 lies per day! (concealing misbehaviour, increasing popularity, keeping one’s social world ticking over)

We are entering “arms race of digital deception”

• Volker Sommer: self-deception is a part of survival

“secret” or sacred knowledge have deep history in many cultural, religious and political systems. Layers of knowledge – not everything should be known to everyone. Parallels with digital world are quite obvious: cultural ideals on the one hand (lying is bad) and cultural practices on the other.

Cites a research by Danah Boyd : a surprising % of myspaces users are over 100 (restricted access to 14 years and above)

About secrets and sacred, mentions postsecret.blogspot.com

=> Tensions between cultural practices and ideals persist around lies and secrets
=> Do the twin ideas of secrets & lies offer new ways to think about pricavy and security?

Brilliant talk, sorry I’m so lousy out taking notes…