Social Media And The Death Of Privacy

As humans we have a seemingly strong desire to broaden our communications and improve it as much as we can. This can occasionally lead to some trade-offs as we try to change how we go about interacting with people on a day to day basis. The more we try to improve our methods of communication the more we seem to distance ourselves from everyone else; it seems the more people we 'get to know' the fewer people we actually know. This can cause a rift in our understanding of certain issues that may not seem harmful at all to talk about in a public setting but in reality can be devastating for another person. It may seem like a good idea to give attention to a problem that you believe is going on that no one is doing anything about, but what are the side effects that can arise from this? Considering the "When Rape Goes Viral" article, it may have seemed like a good idea to shed some light on what was actually going on and getting help for anyone that was afflicted but by doing so the incident is made public causing some unwanted attention for those involved. The privacy that the girl once had had been extinguished as her life had now been publicized in an attempt to 'rescue' her; sure there may be some justice finally involved on the wrongdoers side but perhaps she just wanted to forget about the incident and not have everyone know about what happened to her, she may now have difficulty even having a conversation with someone thinking that perhaps they know what happened to her. This would cause some unwarranted stress in someone's life that they did not need to have, and it's all thanks to the wonders of social media.

I Have Everything To Hide

Most people are unaware of what truly goes on behind the scenes when information is being placed on the internet, or even just on a computer. Once you hit that enter button you allow any data that you may have submitted to be forever placed on the web; this could eventually end up being seen by eyes that have no place looking at your information. Online privacy is a prevalent issue in our current society because millions of users are submitting personal information everyday without understanding what they are actually doing with it. People may claim that this issue is of no importance to them because they have nothing to hide, but once they start to realize exactly how much information someone can get on you just by spending enough time and using the right tools that tune may change. You may claim to have nothing to hide but would you really want almost everything to made publicly available? There may even be a point in time where you will want to hide some of your information but will be unable to because it had already been in the system for far too long. At this point there's no turning back and your personal information can be used in any fashion that someone may desire. I personally am concerned with online privacy, which is why I normally abstain from most social medias, because I cannot predict the future and am unsure as to what may happen one day with this sea of personal information.

The Evolution of our Networked World

Ever since mankind had been capable or rational thought it was important for our survival to attempt to network with others in order to gain advantages in areas of which we were previously lacking. As time progressed the medium used to communicate with one another evolved multiple times, from body language to a more spoken one. Eventually tools were used to increase the efficiency and to help broaden the methods that were currently in place to relay information. All of these advancements in technology had a price on networking, all of which seemed to be worth it in order to communicate with a wider audience and have access to as much information as possible. It seems as if the ultimate trade-off is that the amount of people one tries to network with reduces the strength of bonding one would have with each individual. It's difficult for someone to manage strong connections with numerous people, so in order to communicate with as many people as possible that tie must be severed. This could lead to a possible future where mankind is linked with one another, allowing everyone to know everything but at the cost of not actually understanding each other.