September 2019 – Page 4 – Social Media and Digital Cultures

FOMO

Fear of missing out. Social media didn’t create this issue, classmates have been left off of birthday party invitation lists for years. Social media highlights the issue with posts and pictures showing the cake, the ponies, and the guests at the birthday party. People only post the highlight reel, no one posts their child dropped out of college or someone got suspended, again. Social media users need to realize they aren’t seeing the entire picture, as Abe Lincoln once said….

I think Paul Miller may disagree with the responses from the 30 – Day Writing Challenge on Facebook (see below). When he unplugged from the internet for a year, he was isolated, missed parties, lost human interaction. He learned to use it in moderation, take the good with the bad.

Response A:

Social Media is a scary thing. We’ve allowed out innermost thoughts and feelings to bleed out like we all have Turrets syndrome. The universality of it is wonderful, but also causes more stressed from around the world. It destroys relationships, and creates triggers. Worst of all, we’re all addicted to it.

Response B:

–It has pulled our focus away from daily living, from enjoying the small details of life when your quiet with your thoughts and being mindful.

–It wastes precious time and energy.

–It has artificially made what other people think and vague social acceptance too important.

–It causes grief and anxiety then we compare the lives of our social acquaintances to our own life.

–It does not begin to represent the whole picture of a persons life. It only represents a small controlled, socially acceptable glimpse.

Unplugging from the internet for a year wouldn’t be realistic for the majority of adults. Punishing a teenager by taking their phone is akin to solitary confinement. Social networking shouldn’t replace human interactions, it should complement them. Use it wisely, make plans, keep in touch with friends and family, BUT put it away the you are with friends and family. Be present. Listen to friends when they say you are on a lot, track your screen time and put it away when you reach your maximum. Social media can help you be more social but unfortunately it can also be an unsocial media.

The Price of Privacy: What Are You Paying for Your Online Choices?

I find it rather counter-intuitive that my very first blog happens to be about online privacy. I’ve shied away from blogs for so many years because they seemed too personal. I wasn’t ready to put my thoughts out there on the Internet. Yet, this week I’ve learned that I’ve put so much more of myself out there already without giving it much thought.

I use Facebook. I like to think that I’m a fairly savvy user of the site, reviewing my settings often, marking my photos as “friends only” instead of “public,” and requiring my permission for someone to tag me in a photo or post on my timeline. As an Internet user, you may feel the same way I do: you know what you are doing and are at least somewhat in control. You know you are giving up a little bit of privacy for the convenience of the many free applications you use on a regular basis. We all use free applications. They enable us to socialize, save money, and make life more convenient in so many ways. But are they really free? Are you paying for them with your privacy by handing over more information than you realize?

Data mining has become a huge industry, and data collection is widespread in the United States. Data brokers use data, such as public social media profiles and data from your purchases to provide information to marketers and put you in target categories. This means that each piece of data is not anonymous, but associated with you specifically and can be used for profiling – to create a sort of picture of who you are and what you want. To give you an idea of scope, one data broker for Facebook has information on almost all of the households in the U.S. and $1 trillion in consumer transactions. Another data broker associated with Facebook, has information on 500 million consumers world-wide and about 1,500 data points per person.

Of course, the privacy concerns go far beyond just Facebook. Much of your online activity, such as search activity, is saved and can be sold to or used by third parties. Linking multiple accounts by using your Facebook or Google sign-on to create a new account exacerbates the problem of privacy. For the convenience of using your existing sign-on, you are connecting a variety of applications and providing more insight for profiling.

So what can you do to at least get back a little bit of your privacy? The article, How to Protect Your Privacy and Remove Data from Online Services, suggests a number of actions that you can take. I felt the following were simple and effective enough to use as a starting point:

Check your privacy settings in all of your apps and social media sites.
Remove old accounts.
Register with an alternate email address.
Set your browser to browse in private mode.

It can be overwhelming to think about all of the information you are sharing online and what to do about it. There are many benefits to being online so going “off grid” is not a feasible answer for most of us. However, you should do some research on unfamiliar apps and sites, err on the side of caution when sharing information or giving apps access to your personal data, and pause before you post anything online to think about if it really needs to be out there. Remember, just because an app or site is free, that does not mean that you aren’t paying for it one way or another.

Matteo, V. (2018, January 3). Facebook and Data Mining. TurboFuture. Available at: https://turbofuture.com/internet/How-Facebook-Collects-and-Sells-Your-Data [Accessed 2 Sep. 2019].

Howell, D. (2015, April 22) How to Protect Your Privacy and Remove Data from Online Services. TechRadar. Available at: https://www.techradar.com/news/internet/how-to-protect-your-privacy-and-remove-data-from-online-services-1291515 [Accessed 2 Sep. 2019]

Safety, Security, and Privacy

I grew up feeling like I was safe and had privacy when I needed it. If the doors were locked at night, we were safe. If I needed to have some privacy, I closed a door. The biggest fear that was pounded into me was to make sure that I kept my social security number safe. This was easy, I just memorized the number and kept my card in a safety deposit box. I never even thought about someone trying to steal my identity.

The world that my kids have grown up in is very different. We have spent their entire lives telling them to be careful about what they post on the internet because it is there forever, or we would tell them to not post anything that they wouldn’t want their future employer to see. These seem like basic, common sense things to do. Beyond this, we felt pretty safe.

I have a relatively low social media profile. I have a facebook page that I check every 9 to 12 months and I haven’t posted anything in years. I have a Linkedin account, but I only check it about once per year. For this reason, I felt pretty safe and that my privacy was intact. I didn’t think about the fact that I pay all of our bills online and make online purchases on a weekly basis. When my Xfinity account was hacked last month and $350 worth of extra charges were added to my bill, I realized how truly naive I am.

After reading How to protect your privacy and remove data from online services by David Howell, I discovered how much of a digital footprint I actually have. Due to linkability, I have very little privacy. Due to big data, there is a very strong profile of me to be used in various ways. I may never have posted embarrassing pictures or made unfortunate posts, but through my everyday use of the internet I have unwittingly given up my own right to privacy.

I like Howell’s suggestions to erase our digital footprint through unsubscribing to sites, watching privacy settings, and using stealth mode when searching the internet to name a few. I am glad that governments are working to help with privacy, such as the European Union Court of Justice ruling for the “right to be forgotten,” but my fear is that our legislature is not keeping up with the constantly evolving internet world.

Our children are using the internet and social media more than ever and without proper education, they could be setting themselves up for devastating consequences in their future due to their naive choices today. As Dana Boyd explained in The Future of Privacy in Social Media, children do not realize the power that they are giving away without a thought as they post everything about their lives on social media platforms. I think that we need more education for our children around safety, security, and social media. They need to be taught how to keep themselves safe and the importance of respecting their own privacy. Having been in education for 13 years, I have never seen any kind of in-depth instruction surrounding these topics. This may be one way that we can help our children to stay safe.

Privacy issues

I definitely have concerns about safety, however, I think it requires a risk reward analysis

What are your thoughts about the issues of safety, security, and privacy? I definitely have concerns about safety, however, I think it requires a risk reward analysis. The risks include the fact that people are peering into our lives on a regular basis. That is clearly disheartening and concerning and who knows what they know about my family and me. The rewards are equally as extreme. The use of the tools, Google Calendar, shared Google docs that I use professionally and personally (including for grad school) are incredible. The storage of my photos is awesome plus it makes it easy to share my family pictures with my parents who live out of town. Those are just some of the simple ways I use those tools. Bottom line is safe, security and privacy are really important to me, but I also know that giving up privacy allows the use of some pretty amazing tools.

My Concerns on Privacy

As I was growing up, the idea of privacy meant that I would close the door when I want no one to hear what I was saying on the phone. I was able to hear when someone else picked up the extension in another part of the house. The idea of safety and security meant locking your doors and making sure the house was secure from the outside.

The dawn of technology has increased and continues to soar. In my opinion, the focus has been on technology, phone, internet, and wifi speed instead of consequences or issues of human interaction with technology. As I was writing this blog “Sunday Today” had a spot on Unsocial Media how the age of connectivity has led to isolation. Safety is a huge concern for me because as a teacher, I see students withdraw or become depressed due to the interaction they receive on social media. Danah Boyd mentioned in her talk that when the series 13 Reasons Why came out, the crisis center saw a spike in suicide attempts. As a society, we are trying to catch up with the human aspects of technology. We are still trying to understand the negative consequences of being uninhibited with things we say or view. Social media is becoming a platform for users to become anonymous instead of dealing with human interaction.

We do not see the harm by posting our private information. With the ability to have free speech, we are giving those users who have ill intent the opportunity to enter our individual lives and interact with that information.

I received a Snapchat from my son asking why I have this platform. At first, I jokingly said I am missing out on my kids’ life, and I should download this app. Then it dawned on me after hearing Danah Boyd talk regarding teens’ use of social media. I was invading my children’s privacy by connecting to this platform. My youngest used this platform to have conversations with his siblings regarding “private” talks. The underlying concern of me invading his privacy conveyed through his postings. I had to reassure him that I was going to shut down Snapchat after this class.

Being a person who lived through no technology, I am a concern we are moving too quickly and not understanding the human aspect of this new way of life. My social media use is minimum. I would classify myself as a spectator rather than a participant. My use of social media is to view my family and friends post while being a passive observer. The posting of my life on social media is not something that I enjoy doing. Again I am more of an observer rather than a participant.

Internet Privacy or Safety?

About a year ago, I was at my parents house and a commercial came on for Amazon’s Echo. My dad, being very opinionated, went on a verbal rampage about Echo products and how they record everything they listen to. He blamed home smart devices for the decline of everyone’s privacy. He wasn’t happy when I reminded him his cell phone listens to him all the time and that wasn’t any different. Imagine my surprise when several weeks later my dad became a proud owner of several Google Home Minis. It turns out his issue was less about “privacy” and more about “not letting Amazon own his life.” This makes sense when you think of privacy as control of the data you generate and not privacy as being free from being observed or bothered as I was thinking of it.

When it comes to information or data privacy, I am one of the many people who feel resigned to not having any privacy. I know that every time I swipe my card to buy something, the store records my data and my bank records my data. I also know they use my data for marketing and sometimes they sell it. But, I have to buy stuff and I don’t carry cash. I have a smartphone and I know it’s listening to me right now as I talk and type. But I don’t turn voice activated functions off because I don’t think it matters in the big picture. There is no data privacy in today’s world.

When I think about social media privacy, I think about whether or not I am safe online. The answer, unfortunately, is no. I have no idea if the people I have “friended” are actually the people who I think they are. I know too many people who have had their social media identities stolen. Privacy settings on social media are limited. For example, profile pictures are public and it is easy for someone to copy and use your picture to create an account for themselves and pretend to be you.

A few years ago, I was less concerned about internet privacy and ended up the target of an internet stalker who used social media as their stalking platform. They friended me as someone I knew, but had not talked to in a while, and then proceeded to invade my life. A few months ago, my safety concerns reemerged when someone stole my mom’s Facebook identity. One morning at work, my phone beeped and informed me my mom was on messenger so I started chatting with her. It wasn’t until about 5 minutes in when I realized it was 9am and there was no way my mom would be awake. I called my parents house and sure enough, she was asleep. Her privacy settings had gotten “reset” to global after the last upgrade and she had been posting publicly. This allowed someone to match her personality by reading her posts and imitating her.

Since then, I have learned to make my social media accounts as private as possible and I never friend anyone until I talk to them first and verify the account is theirs. Since everything I did to hide my presence used “privacy settings,” I determined that privacy was my issue when really it is safety. Privacy settings can not guarantee our safety online. Privacy settings create isolation which is the opposite of the online communities social media creates.

As I started my MA program, I realized during my second class that social media would be important for my studies. I have been working on finding a way to be open on social media professionally while still retaining the safety of having my personal social media closed. I am sure the balance between safety, privacy and community will not be easy to find, but, I will find it.

High School: teacher privacy vs student privacy

As a High School teacher it can be difficult to address the issues of privacy…

As a High School teacher it can be difficult to address the issues of privacy in a school building. Especially when dealing with your own personal data.

In 2018, a student found my Instagram profile, at the time it was a open to public profile and had pictures of my trips, bad selfies and of my pets. After a student requested to follow me on Instagram I decided to make the profile private. This was for to reasons, the first was because I did not want students to use my posts for creating memes or as a way to hide their own presence. and the second reason was to help dictate who could see my pictures.

Later in that year our school was dealing with several instances with online bulling through an Instagram ‘tea’ (gossip) account. This account used a picture of me as its user profile. They took an image that was my profile pic, added eyebrows and then used it as the profile picture. This created the issue of being tied to a sight that I did not have any control over. We did not know who the account belonged to. This also means that the picture of me they used will forever link me to it.

(top the eyebrow-ed picture, bottom original picture)

In looking through this weeks videos and readings, It is clear that though we create a public to private environment, we have to address the issues of unintended usage of our data especially when others use our data to hide themselves.