Different social media sites have been increasing in the past few years. Without a doubt the largest of these sites is Facebook. According to an article that I read it was not until 1997 that the Internet reached fifty million users in the United States. Between January 2009 to January 2010 Facebook gained over 100 million users. In a sense it is almost scary to think of how fast social media sites are taking over the Internet. I believe that in a way these different sites are allowing people to expand or identities and in a way even be someone that we are not. This can be both good and bad though. Someone can pretend to be a nice beautiful your girl, when they are really a fifty year old pedophile. People can learn more about someone through their facebook page then they could maybe even learn through meeting them in person. I tend to feel that many people can act very differently in person then they do on facebook. Facebook does not allow for certain things such as sarcasms or certain emotions.
In the same article mentioned earlier I found a list of questions to ask yourself when signing up for the many social media sites out there. Some of these questions included; What am I using this site for? Whose attention am I trying to get? When signing up for a facebook or a twitter account one must be very careful to think who is going to be seeing my personal information. You personally information is now in the open and people can see it and comment about it. This leads to a lack of not having personal space. So many people will often post what they are doing as their status. For example as status could reading, “Going to the movies tonight” or “Getting drunk tonight with my besties”. The simplest way to keep some of your personally space is to not post statuses such as those I just listed. Personally I will occasionally put up a status that describes what I am doing or maybe how I am feeling, but also I will post a status of maybe a music lyric that I like, or something that made me happy that day.
I am not trying to say that I do not like facebook and that I do not like my personal information being out there I just don’t like that there is indeed a sense of no privacy. I could post a status and a minute later it could multiple “likes”. I do however believe that some of this “invasion of privacy” is necessary to be able to use these sites and be the media- obsessed race that we have become. I think what many people don’t realize is that lives can be changed a result of these social media websites. As it showed in the video many couples have met over the internet even if it is indeed not facebook it could be something such as World of Warcraft, which is also another huge online game where u can enjoy the fun of a game and socialize with people across the country and the same time. If I had the opportunity to meet my future wife on the internet and meet some of my new best friends on the internet they I would gladly give up some of my personal indentity.
http://www.inc.com/guides/using-social-networking-sites_pagen_2.html
Matt, you have a lot of good points about our privacy on Facebook. We are unable to know who is looking at our pages. Many people create fake names and profiles which could be dangerous. There are many dangerous people on the internet who our looking to gain access to our information. All with these people, companies are also looking for our information and using it to their advantage. This information, which we may think is private is actually being given out to people we do not know.
ReplyDeleteI do believe, like you, that sometimes we need to give out some information on the web for personal purposes. The internet has now become the new place to met people. One in five relationships now start on the internet. It is important, however, to make sure our information is not being given to the wrong people.
I agree with you comment that you feel no sense of privacy on Facebook. Most people believe that their Facebook's are completly secure, but they are not. As tight as our securities may be, our information somehow continues to be given to people we have never met.
Dispite the dangers, people will deal with the lack f privacy because of the popularity and frequent use of sites such as Facebook.
I really liked your response to the question and gave me even more insight to what i was thinking for my own question. What i found interesting is that you compared how many people were on the internet in the 90s and now how many have a Facebook page. That literally blew my mind! Putting data together like that is really interesting and i thought the way you did it proved your point exactly. Also what else caught my eye is that you touched on the reality of things you need to think about before signing up for these social media sits like Facebook. If i could go back in time i would never have created one just because of all the dumb comments and pictures i took when i was a HS senior or college freshman. Most of anything silly is deleted now but still, i wish i thought better of what i put out on the internet. My young sisters have profiles and I wish they didn't and i talk my sister who is 12 all the time about it. I think there is no need for these young people to expose themselves so much.
ReplyDelete