Response Post: Week 10

At the beginning of the week, I raised some framing questions from danah boyd’s studies. The central theme of my questions involved privacy concerns that arise from popular forms of social media- Facebook, in particular. Transparency is an especially pertinent topic when dealing with social media use among younger generations. In class we discussed the impact of Facebook’s privacy settings on users’ online behavior. With our generation’s online presence becoming increasingly important to our every day lives, it’s certainly an issue worth exploring. The online behavior and privacy settings (or lack thereof) of college students, in particular, have becoming unavoidable subjects of concern as these individuals look to enter the workforce. It’s something that I personally consider on a regular basis, even though our iMedia graduation remains months away. For instance, I’ve always kept strict privacy settings on my Facebook page, allowing only people I choose to friend to have access to my information page, photos, wall, etc. The only information that I allow to remain public is my name, profile picture and school. With this in mind, I’m conscious of the fact that there are other ways for computer-savvy individuals to access the other components of my profile. I carefully monitor the content that I post on my page, making sure that even if my profile was public by default, I don’t have published content that could potentially harm my chances at getting a job offer.

The potential for online profiles to become transparent at any time, even without our consent, is important for social media users to be aware of. I still think that users should have the power to choose the level of transparency of their own sites, but user ignorance can be extremely dangerous. Returning to the earlier question regarding the role of educators in the social media realm: it seems that one essential role is to ensure that students, especially high school and college-age, are well aware of these important issues of online privacy and the potential negative consequences. My undergraduate classes did a great job of helping me understand the implications of transparency within my online presence, the capabilities (and sometimes, limitations) of privacy settings and the overall power that a seemingly-simple social network, such as Facebook, can have on my overall reputation. I’m fortunate to have been educated in a way that allows me to make informed decisions about my online behavior. Still, I think many social media users of my generation lack the proper education that is almost necessary in these times. In the case of online privacy issues, ignorance is not bliss, and knowledge is certainly power.

Tags: facebook, privacy, response, social media, transparency