Social Networking and Privacy

How often do you use social networking sites/tools like Facebook, Twitter, or FourSquare?

Once upon a time, I had a MySpace. When Facebook became popularized, I got rid of my MySpace and switched over. At the moment, Facebook is the only social networking site that I use. There isn’t a day that passes where I don’t check my Facebook. It’s become a habit of mine that I’m not too proud to admit.

How much time to do you spend texting, tweeting, or checking status updates on your phone or computer?

At the moment, I text about 1500 texts per month so that averages to about 50 per day. I often text the most on days where I have a break in between my classes or while I’m walking to class. Overall, I suppose I spend about 15 minutes of my day texting, given that it takes about 20 seconds to read and respond. As far as checking status updates, I do that about 5-10 times per day. I kind of enjoy reading what people are up to, what’s on their minds, etc., and besides, it gives me something to do while keeping me entertained. Overall, I probably spend about a good 30 minutes checking updates throughout the day.

Do you think the cultural move toward social networking, constant access, and the loss of privacy it sometimes brings about is a positive/negative trend on the whole?

To me, I think that this cultural move has been a positive trend. Social networking sites are great. I’ve been able to get in touch with many people I grew up with. Back then, pagers were around, and the internet was barely being introduced. I seriously remember being one of the only ones in my middle school class who had access to the internet (and that was the dial-up version of AOL). Cell phones were the size of a brick, and not many people had it. It was really difficult keeping in touch with friends at the time, and I remember exchanging addresses with people just to be able to keep in touch during the summertime since my grandma didn’t allow me to be on the house phone that much. Nowadays, with access to the internet, emails, and cell phones, I’m able to keep in touch with people, and it’s extremely convenient. Since I created a Facebook account, over a dozen people I knew in elementary school found me and friended me. I seriously thought I’d never talk to them again in this lifetime, and it’s funny how they’d message me and ask if I’m the correct Marianne. Once I said yes, they’d ask whether or not I remember them, and I’d laugh because I know that I surely do!

With positives come negatives. The other day, there was a black-out at my house. I absolutely had nothing to do (well, I could have read a bit but I wasn’t in the mood at the time), so I decided that I’d get online. I seriously thought I beat the system when I saw that my laptop was fully charged. I turned on my laptop only to find that I couldn’t connect to the internet because my router needed to be powered on to be able to do so. You have no idea how MISERABLE I felt until I realized that fortunately, I have internet on my phone. It definitely helped by easing my anxiety. Being able to constantly access the internet, I find that I’ve grown to become dependent.

Even though we’ve loss some privacy with everything that has come about, I think that we can attempt to minimize that loss as much as possible with what we can work with. For example, we can control what information we’d want our friends/nonfriends/people within network to see. It’s just a matter of knowing where to go to set it. We can also use an alias name or set the Facebook page to be unsearchable by others, but that’d defeat the purpose because I’d personally want to be found. Aside from that, there are privacy issues we’re unable to control such as public records. I believe that the internet has made it easier to find information, but really, most of that information has always been available.

What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of this entanglement between our personal lives and technology?

As I’ve mentioned before, the internet has allowed me to get in touch with those I thought I’d never see again. Another benefit is the quick access to information and handiness of paying bills online. Since I don’t have cable, I’m still able to watch tv. In addition, I’ve been able to save a lot of money by price checking items at various places and doing research before buying. The main drawback is the way in which my personal information is vulnerable.

Have you ever "over-shared" or texted, tweeted, or posted something you have regretted?

At times, I do feel like I’ve over-shared some information. On Facebook, it’s easy to just get back on and delete it. There’s a good chance that a lot of people haven’t seen it, but at times, when I do a status update, someone would comment on it right away; that kind of creeps me out and I’m still trying to get used to that because it shows that people are, in fact, reading. Through texts, however, I feel totally different. I feel like once it’s sent, it’s irreversible. One time, I accidently texted the wrong person, and I was basically talking about that person in the text. Luckily, I didn’t mention any names. When you press that send button, there’s no taking it back except trying to play it off somehow. Since then, I’ve learned to be more cautious.

Do you ever worry about your privacy when it comes to using these tools?

I don’ really worry about privacy when it comes to Facebook because my page is pretty much private. After hearing Professor Armstrong talk about employers having people hack into profiles to find out about a potential candidate’s character, it kind of frightened me. Besides that, I feel as though I’m in control or else I can simply resort to deleting my account. On a side note, I seldom update on the places I’m at because I feel like that’s pushing it a bit to let others know my exact location.