Nowadays, because of the pandemic, SOCIAL MEDIA became an integral part of our life and keeps everyone connected to the world according to our needs. Businesses use social media to communicate with their target audiences and generate brand awareness, leads, sales and revenue. Educators also use social media to connect with academic groups and has incorporated forums and chat rooms to increase interactivity with their students, promote events and courses and conduct webinars. We use it to reach out to our loved ones and nurture our relationship with them. It gives us the opportunity to speak out what we know and what we want to be known for. It increases our level of awareness of what was happening around us while making our whole world became smaller and smaller. Social media gives us opportunities to access almost everything with just a click away. Communication travels faster and accessing different information is easier. As a result, with today’s obsession with social media network, as more and more information gets placed online, some people out of curiosity tend to stole data and undermine personal privacy.
The rules of the road are not necessarily intuitive while the tools of social media are easily accessible. Social media violates our privacy in many ways. Our personal information was shared to the government for security reasons. Social media wants us to think that they exist to build connection within communities. But like most companies, they buy social networking people’s information that helps them market their products or services. Our personal information is open to the public once we post it on social media sites and it is not secured by social networking firms which value their personal interests. Hackers are present everywhere. Everyone who signs in social media has access to our profiles with ease. Everything in social media can be spied. The fact is that, there is no privacy in social media world and we unexpectedly, unknowingly allowed it.
No one wants their privacy to be invaded but even if we are being careful on sharing our information on social media sites, there are always someone to spy on you. Each social media platform has a different process to control privacy settings. Before you share your post or pics or even your personal information, always be mindful of who can see, react or comment. Cautiously decide whether you want your post and pictures to be visible to everyone or just with your friends. Tagging or mentioning of friends can be a lot of fun but also an invasion of privacy. If you don’t want to be tagged with something inappropriate, always review their tags before it was published publicly. Keep in mind, however, just because you may not approve the post to be published on your social media page, it may still be visible on theirs, publicly. Social media and networking sites can be a great way to stay connected with old friends and help you make new ones. Just keep your privacy shades drawn to the appropriate level.
