While the internet has been in use for the better part of twenty years, its true effect on the spectrum of daily transgressions has only been tangible since roughly 2003. The impetus, so to speak, behind this newfound prominence can be almost directly attributed to one medium: social networking. Since the advent of networking sites such as MySpace, Friendster, and later Facebook and Twitter, society as a whole has become far more "plugged in." While in the past the go-to means of technological communication were limited mostly to e-mail and instant messengers, the paradigm has shifted tangibly. The reason for this is that these new networking venues essentially provide an individual with a combination of the sources that came before it. Facebook, for instance, allows people to send both e-mail type and instant messages in one place. The level of convenience it affords is unprecedented.
However, there is another very significant aspect of social networking that remains somewhat of a wild card: exposure. The ability to upload personal pictures and post status updates that convey people's moods, actions, and opinions has opened up the floodgates for what is considered "private." By looking at one's Facebook or Twitter page, an observer can essentially learn how someone dresses, who their friends are, and what they have been or will be doing. This is a concept that was altogether foreign even ten years ago; now it is relatively mundane. It has really made its mark in popular culture as well. Famous athletes, music artists, and actors routinely employ Facebook and Twitter as a means of communicating with their fans and keeping them posted on near every aspect of their personal lives. Effectively, if someone has a social networking account, their privacy no longer really exists. It has become a popular adage that once something about someone is posted online, it is there forever. Granted, there are certain steps one can take to attempt to rectify this situation, but those steps are becoming less and less easy to take. Society in general has become so interconnected that we really all now live in the "public eye."
-Dylan Parker
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Comment by Tallia Deljou:
ReplyDeleteDylan,
I think you make a very good point in saying that even though such social networking sites have provided a convenient forum for communication, we must also keep in mind how much of ourselves we are willing to expose and share with the rest of the world. Putting your profile on "private," for example, still means that your 1,328 friends can still see everything you post. On that note, the word "private" has taken on a different meaning altogether. This, in turn, may affect our notion of "friendship." You may not see someone more than twice a year, but if you're "seeing" them on facebook once a day, do you know them as well as you think? What level of friendship do you stand on with each other?