Letter to theNY TIMES Fashion Editor, RE: Pamela Paul's "Don't Tell me, I Don't Want to Know" (2/10/12)

Generation S (S. for sharing) has lost sight of prior privacy norms, and now freely shares.  Some, as the title suggest, freely share all. Compounding the issue, the internet doesn't forget: so our embarrassing antics at the last holiday party will forever haunt us, remaining in some Google searchable archive of some Facebook page. The problem with all this TMI, forever seared into our collective hard drive, runs deeper than the emotional distress of seeing an ex enjoying themselves, even as we wallow in misery.  Sharing is trending to more than just 140 character snippets of the banality of our lives.  With the advent of digital medical files and easily available personal genomic sequencing,  the ability to easily share heretofore very private medical and/or genetic information could have serious consequences, particularly for the relatives of sharers, who although share common genetic information, might wisely not share this penchant for sharing.

Dov Greenbaum JD PhD

 Mark Gerstein PhD

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Unpublished Letter to the Editor
 Pamela Paul's "Don't Tell me, I Don't Want to Know" (2/10/12)
NY Times, Fashion Section
 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/fashion/tmi-i-dont-want-to-know.html?pagewanted=all