Personally, I think that I do not use sites such as Facebook or Twitters too often. I have friends who basically spend their entire day on Facebook, having it open in the background while they do their homework and checking it every few minutes. I, on the other hand, while check Facebook a few times a day. I have it as an app on my phone and I'll look through it for many five minutes and then look around for a bit more time when I turn on my laptop before I do my homework. Overall, I would have to say that I spend about 30 minutes a day (and this is a day where I have nothing to do) on average on Facebook, some days I do not even go on it at all. Twitter is a whole different topic for me; I do not understand Twitter at all or why it is so popular. If you are a celebrity I guess that it is a fun way to get in touch with your fans and update them on what you are doing. If you are anyone else, I just don't get it; why would you want to update people a few times a day on what you are doing? It seems a bit creepy and stalker-esque in my opinion. I have looked at peoples' Twitter pages before to see updates like, "buying a shirt at macys valley fair!" or ones like "about the go to the dentist office in san jose!" Really, do you think people care about those minuscule facts in your life? I think not. Anyways, before I get off topic, I am also not sure what FourSquares is, I have not hear of it before. Even after looking it up online, I still don't really get it.
I believe that privacy can be a huge issue on Facebook, or any social networking site. I think that people get carried away sometimes and feel a little too "safe" saying whatever they would like to say. One (extreme) example of this is of a 19 year old teenager that tried to hire a hitman via his Facebook updates! 19 year old, Corey Adams posted updates such as "I got 500 on a girls head who wants that bread? Hit me up anyway possible." referring to a girl that he was accused of raping last year and was about to go to trial for. A police officer replied to his inquiry for him, but Adams never showed up to the meet. While this is an extreme example, and also extremely stupid, I think it comes to show how people do not realize who may be reading their Facebooks or the trouble that they can get into with putting up dangerous posts such as these. It also gives a lot of information out to stalkers, especially the new "locations"app on Facebook which I am extremely opposed to.
On top of the lack of privacy and the growing stupidity with some kids' posts, social networking can also warp one's view of real hanging out and socializing in general. Back in the day, before Xanga, Myspace, Facebook, Twitter ,etc. one would have to be much more focused in what they are doing at the moment. They could not reach under the table to their Blackberrys and chat with friends about how they are so bored at family dinners, or when they are at a date that is going so terribly reach out to their friends for help to save them. It makes you able to be turned on at all times to all parts of the world and all your friends; back in middle school it was almost unimaginable to NOT be online the second you get home from school on AIM.
I think almost everyone has made mistakes when it comes to overexposing themselves online. Personally, I am very good about putting the highest privacy on my Facebook; while I do not care if others are to see my picture or what school I go to, I do not like them seeing too much. One of the times where I got caught in a sticky situation was with an after-prom party that I was going to have my house. I posted the invitations as a Facebook event and invited everyone that I deemed suitable to come to my party. Of course, not everyone was invited. When those who were not invited found out, they got jealous and went straight to the administration to tell on me. Because I went to a strict private school, everything you do outside of school, the admin has the right to get you in trouble for (yes I know, totally unfair and extremely annoying). One of the admin directors called my dad to basically tell on me for throwing a party at my house when my parents weren't going to be there. Well, this could potentially have been a bad situation for me, but my dad actually knew about the party, didn't care, and yelled at the admin for calling him during work hours. So in the end, I had won :) But, it could have been very bad if my parents were strict and did not know about this party.
This was a very interesting blog post! It brought up many good points, especially the issue with privacy and high school students. I too wen to a private high school who was very strict. At one point, they made a bunch of girls delete their myspace accounts because of certain photos that are on there. I think the whole privacy issue is a huge gray area. This blog did a great job of showing that issue.
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