Instilling Online Boundaries: What Is Lost When We Give Up Our Privacy
The power of social media platforms started out with an idea. To connect people with their loved ones. Sharing photos and giving life updates, all had good intentions. As the benefits of technology grow so does the dangers. Many people don’t turn on the privacy features of their social media accounts that limit their profile posts and pictures to only being viewed by their selected friends. Now any person who knows your first and last name can find you on these platforms and start to learn everything about you. Who your married to, where you went to school, when your birthday is, what your hobbies and interests are, all of that is in the profile, then we add in our post updates that share our moods, pictures of where we go and what we are doing.
The majority of people have good intentions, but the people who do not, now have a surfeit of information about you, your family and your routine. Any person with ill intent can now add all these details up and know when you will be at your favorite coffee shop, your workout gym or out of town on vacation as you give live updates about your trip.
Not only are adults sharing their whole life online, many of their kids grow up with their childhood displayed online for all to see. The weekly updates about their cute and funny moments as well as when they got in trouble, now are forever stored online. Many kids are given unlimited access to their own social media accounts from a young age. Whatever we do as adults with our online profiles, we can expect our kids to follow suit and more. The sad reality is they are growing up thinking that every private thought and experience should be made public for it to be valid, wondering how many “likes” they will get on each post. These moments being cataloged are now used as history that is pulled up as references and background research when these kids are going in for an interview for a scholarship, job, or other opportunity. The moments they shared their weaknesses and struggles or lack of online tact is now painting a picture of them to their interviewer before they even get to speak.
Our privacy is like putting a drop of dye into a pool, once we’ve done that it’s forever a part of that body of water. Anyone who can see your photos or posts can download them onto their own device. This means even if you decide to go online and delete all your photos, you have no idea who has saved them and what they are using them for.
Many of the reasons people get sucked into the “need” to use social media is to check in on family and friends. This reason unfortunately creates a passive approach to creating that connection instead of a proactive one. People can give a quick “thumbs up” or “heart” response, or maybe leave a 3-word comment. By doing this they are missing out on the conversation that forms around that post or pictures. The how are you doing? Really doing? Tell me more about that picture or event. If we instead have a phone call with our family or friends and we tell them about the latest funny thing that happened we can send them a photo directly. Now we know it is only going to them and won’t be shared with others without our permission.
As many benefits as there are to today’s technology, taking great caution when it comes to our privacy is something we need to protect daily. If we don’t, we will one day realize the importance of it long after it’s too late.