SURPRISE awaited me as I logged in to Facebook last Monday. A male "friend" of mine had referred to one of my female "friends" in his status update. The short notice read, "Man I saw this girl in my spanish [sic] class," after which he mentioned her full name and concluded with, "She's beyond beautiful."
I could not help but laugh softly when I saw this. To my best knowledge, the guy and girl are not friends in real life, nor have they ever interacted with each other. They are, however, Facebook friends, so she could see what he typed.
Would this guy ever go up to said girl and initiate a conversation by saying, "You're beyond beautiful"? Acknowledging their lack of past history, we can conclude confidently he would not. This is something too few of us consider when utilizing social media: We reveal far more on these websites than we ever would consider sharing through our normal, in-person interactions.
Seemingly since the time of its invention, there have been worries about a lack of privacy on the Internet. It began with a fear of sexual predators; most people did not know or perhaps even think about how to hide their personal information on the web. But now the issue reaches far beyond an inability to hide our age, sex and location. It has become a matter of sharing too many of our feelings, personal doings and beliefs. We have created a dangerous environment in which the ideas of "personal" and "private" hardly exist.
One thing all social media websites have in common is the possession of material that ought to be kept private. Vulgar videos often come to fame on YouTube - think of the UCLA student who demeaned her Asian classmates. Facebook is no stranger to unnecessarily sexual remarks. Just yesterday I came across a comment suggesting my friend ought to be "pounding beers and pounding females" instead of "listening to music." Adding to this, how many times have we seen online evidence of illegal activities? Underage drinking, marijuana usage, possession of fake IDs - to say such activities are referenced often online would be an understatement.
Perhaps worst of all is the presence of cyberbullying, wherein the Internet is used to harm others in a manner not possible during in-person interaction. The bullying can be done in larger groups, with more repetition and without fear of immediate repercussions. The question with all of these examples is, would we see any of it outside the World Wide Web? I do not think the woman from UCLA would have gone up to her Asian peers in the library and mocked their speech. Nor do I believe many teens would openly carry around a red plastic cup of beer in public. And although the National Crime Prevention Counsel says 43 percent of teens report being victims of cyberbullying, the National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center estimatess only 30 percent are victims of traditional bullying. Simply put, more bullying occurs online than in-person.
There are serious consequences attached to revealing this once private material to millions of people. We refrain from such vulgar, sexual conversation in public because we know such words reduce our credibility as mature, educated individuals who are deserving of respect. The same repercussions remain for using such language on the Internet.
Moreover, posting evidence of illegal activity harms our future prospects: Oregon Business News found that "thirty-five percent of employers reported they have found content on social networking sites that caused them not to hire the candidate." And cyberbullying has the same detrimental impact upon emotional and mental stability that traditional bullying does.
Moving forward, we must inquire as to why such an expanded definition of personal information is used online. Perhaps it is a mental process that we undergo. When physically surrounded by people, we can see all of our witnesses and act accordingly. In a public place, we may act more reserved, but we may be more open when we know it is just close friends in our proximity. On the Internet, however, we cannot make such definitive judgments. Because we are often alone or in small groups when using social media, the notion that the world is our audience never crosses our minds. If we are to resolve this problem, it begins with understanding that billions of people use the Internet, and much of what we share online potentially could be seen by all of them.
I have and always will encourage dialogue that pushes our comfort zones. But there is a difference between engaging in conversation on controversial issues and posting obviously private information for millions to see. Unfortunately, that concept is hard to grasp for many. Just know that whatever you post on Facebook might be reported on in the next issue of the local newspaper.
Cameron Seib is a Viewpoint writer for The Cavalier Daily.
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