Social Networking and Privacy

Throughout the most recent decade we have seen extremely fast technological advancements particularly in the form of communication. Perhaps one of the most revolutionary innovations with regards to communication technology is invention of Internet socializing. These website more commonly known as social networking sites have revolutionized the way in which we communicate. Many have been able to notice this drastic change on a social level, particularly adults who witnessed the birth of the Internet and subsequently the creation of the social networking websites.

Personally, social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and even YouTube play an active role in my life. I spend a descent part of my day on and off of these social media sites and often use them to communicate with friends, family, and even co-workers. However, I probably spend less time than the average person does on social media sites.

Out of the social media site that I use, I spend the most time on YouTube and Facebook. I spend an average of and hour on each website. These websites mainly function as an excuse to procrastinate, however, I often use Facebook to stay in contact with friends from high school or my family back home. Also, given that Facebook is one the more popular social media sites among my classmates, it can also be utilized for academic purposes, such as group projects or group studying for exams. On the other hand certain sites such as Instagram or Twitter are purely for socializing purposes. These I use much less frequently, as I usually get bored with them pretty quickly. Lastly, I would like to discuss the matter of text messaging or imessaging and Snapchat. Snapchat is the fastest growing of all social media apps. I use text message as my primary form of communication, and even though I have a Snapchat I use it relatively infrequently.

My personal use of social media has often led to me thinking about the growing use and reliance on social media websites and apps, as a form of communication. This growing trend does bring up a lot of important questions. One of the most important questions that arises, is the question over the impact that social media has on our personal privacy. Ultimately, website such as Twitter and Facebook have made our lives very public. This has its positive elements and its drawbacks. If handled responsibly this how public we make our lives can be controlled, however, many people whether by choice or as a result of the their use of social networking sites, make their lives very public.

Personally, I have never had a problem with tweeting or messaging something I should not have. But one example does come to mind, in which my five roommates and I were in a group message with our realtor. We were discussing rent and move in dates, when one of my house mates, clearly not knowing that our realtor was included in the chat, made a fairly offensive remark targeted at the realtor. This was nothing more than an attempt at humor that went wrong. Fortunately, our realtor had a good sense of humor, and so that was that. However, even though that was a relatively harmless situation, it goes to show that if one is not careful there can be very negative ramifications for being irresponsible with their use of social networking websites and social media in general.