{"id":12404,"date":"2020-08-15T21:50:00","date_gmt":"2020-08-16T01:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=12404"},"modified":"2020-08-18T14:35:33","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T18:35:33","slug":"generations-of-technology-snowden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/","title":{"rendered":"Generations of Technology: Changes in Snowden&#8217;s Lifetime"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>How have computers and other technology changed over the years? What did new generations of technology bring for society? How did this influence Edward Snowden&#8217;s life?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are many technology differences between generations. If you are a tech-savvy teenager that&#8217;s tried to help an older relative, you&#8217;ve seen generational differences in technology use. Learn how Edward Snowden was in one of the newer generations of technology and what that meant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Different Generations of Technology Use <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>When Edward Snowden was born in 1983, he was at the end of a generation and the start of a new technology-focused generation. His family had a long history of heroes and patriots. In fact, his mother was directly descended from the barrelmaker on the <em>Mayflower<\/em>. But technology was Ed\u2019s future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ed saw changes in generations of technology firsthand. He saw the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/evolution-of-the-internet\/\">evolution of the internet<\/a> and experienced its growing presence. <strong>Ed was part of the last generation whose childhood wasn\u2019t digitized.<\/strong> Instead of his baby photos are in photo albums and home videos are on VHS. They aren\u2019t on Facebook and YouTube. Of course, this also means that they won\u2019t last forever, unlike their digital counterparts.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Fix-It Culture<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the early generations of technology was fix-it culture. In the author\u2019s parents\u2019 generation, when something broke, you fixed it, or got it fixed. <strong>By the time the author\u2019s generation came along, however, when something broke, it was easier, cheaper, and faster to just get a new one.<\/strong> Getting something fixed was often more expensive than buying a new version, and buying the parts and fixing it yourself was even more expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>As a result, no one really knows how a lot of technology works anymore. When it breaks, we\u2019re at its mercy.<\/strong> This is a generational difference in technology use.<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Online Personas<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Next of the generations of technology Snowden experienced was the concept of an online persona. The internet used to be anonymous, but technology differences between generations changed that. <strong>In the 90s, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/what-is-your-true-self\/\">your real self<\/a> could be completely separate from the online persona or personas you portrayed.<\/strong> Online, you were free to be as creative and open as you liked. You never had to worry about your reputation, or looking like a hypocrite, or if people would make fun of your tacky GeoCities site. People posted about whatever they liked, hoping to sway others to their opinion. Because the Internet was anonymous, you could easily change your mind and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/48-laws-of-power-law-25-recreate-yourself\/\">reinvent yourself<\/a> anytime.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Having a different online persona was especially encouraged by role-playing games, especially MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games). You needed new, separate identities and had to create an avatar, or \u201calt.\u201d It was also perfectly fine to have more than one \u201calt\u201d and switch between them whenever you liked.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That didn\u2019t last. In the 2000s, the <strong>government and businesses started to link real-life identities and online roles. <\/strong>With new developments, futures generations and technology use will change.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How have computers and other technology changed over the years? What did new generations of technology bring for society? How did this influence Edward Snowden&#8217;s life? There are many technology differences between generations. If you are a tech-savvy teenager that&#8217;s tried to help an older relative, you&#8217;ve seen generational differences in technology use. Learn how Edward Snowden was in one of the newer generations of technology and what that meant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12498,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,39,24],"tags":[116],"class_list":["post-12404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-communication","category-history","category-society","tag-permanent-record","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Generations of Technology: Changes in Snowden&#039;s Lifetime - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Edward Snowden was born at the end of one generation and the start of another. He saw the changed generations of technology. Read about some of the changes.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Generations of Technology: Changes in Snowden&#039;s Lifetime\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Edward Snowden was born at the end of one generation and the start of another. He saw the changed generations of technology. Read about some of the changes.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Shortform Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-08-16T01:50:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-18T18:35:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/wordpress.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-generations-of-technology-scaled.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2560\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1707\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rina Shah\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rina Shah\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/d07435826f13a8f422d5d333dceac287\"},\"headline\":\"Generations of Technology: Changes in Snowden&#8217;s Lifetime\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-16T01:50:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-18T18:35:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/\"},\"wordCount\":506,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-generations-of-technology-scaled.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Permanent Record\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Communication\",\"History\",\"Society\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/\",\"name\":\"Generations of Technology: Changes in Snowden's Lifetime - Shortform Books\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/generations-of-technology-snowden\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/permanent-record-generations-of-technology-scaled.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-08-16T01:50:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-18T18:35:33+00:00\",\"description\":\"Edward Snowden was born at the end of one generation and the start of another. 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