The Conflict between Sharing and Privacy

The YouTube link I posted on Facebook 'The Social Media Experiment' has got me thinking...

We all favor privacy. With the knowledge of the bad things that happen in the world as a result of the poor decisions and behaviors of others we don't often trust other people, for justified reasons. Since everyone is imperfect and thus all subject to dishonesty we would never post our personal bank details on a social media site if we valued our money and sustenance. We know the risk in that but what about the risk in posting photos? Schedules? Locations? The latter, most especially, gives anyone connected to social media the ability to find you wherever you are, as the man in the Social Media Experiment demonstrated. These things don't seem so "personal" to us but from watching this video we can see how just how much information one can gather from merely stalking social media profiles.

A man at the end of the video threatened to the call the police if they tried to "invade [his] privacy" again. It is quite ironic how this man is so willing to post this information, clearly has not adjusting his social media settings to allow for more privacy, yet claims that his "privacy" has been "invaded". I can understand where he is coming from, because if I had been in their position I certainly would have been freaked out, but this guy seemed to miss the whole point in the experiment. He didn't realise that maybe he was doing something wrong not the experimenter. Yes, the experiment was on the creepy side but no less real. The experimenter only showed this man what people can do in social media stalking, without even hacking into anything.

Here is my message: Reconsider posting anything that you would not be comfortable with a stranger knowing about you. If you feel a real need to be a little more personal, make your social media profiles as private as possible. You are using the internet. Remember, the internet is available to the world.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P_0s1TYpJU