One of the major focuses for this subject is to look at the following question; How have social networking sites affected our thoughts regarding the concepts of privacy and trust within our community?
One school of thought is that with social networking sites growing in popularity rapidly, we have increasingly less privacy than we had before.
Privacy = Good
Social Networking = Less Privacy
Therefore: Social Networking = Bad
This is probably a fairly logical position to take. It follows the line of thinking that the more we put on the internet, the more others know about us, and as such, the less privacy we have. Sure.
I, myself, tend to think that social networking sites aren't that big a deal, which probably isn't a view shared with many others in this subject, as, well, if it's not a big deal, then why pick the subject? Regardless, I believe that even though the rise of social networking has led there to be more information about myself in a public forum than there would be otherwise, if, say, I didn't have the internet, most of what can be found out about me by looking at my Facebook page isn't really "private" information.
This all depends of course, on how we define the word "private", something we were asked to do in a class a few weeks ago. The way I see it, there are two ways of describing the word "private". The first is to regard the word "private" as being an antonym for the word "public". "Public" information is information that can be seen or used by anyone, regardless of whether or not they know me. Because of my Facebook page, there is more information about me for the "public" to look at. More "public" information equals less "private" information. So, by interpreting the word "private" in this way, yes, I would agree that Facebook has led me to have less "privacy".
However, I am not just interested in viewing the word "private" as an antonym for "public". I tend to think of the word "private" as a synonym for the word "personal". "Personal information" is information that I like to keep to myself. This is a very different definition. For example, those who haven't met me probably don't know that I have brown hair. Though because of Facebook, people who don't know me could probably find out what colour my hair was if they really wanted to. As my Facebook page is set so that only those who know me can see more than just my name and a photo, this is basically all they will see. This information would have been "private" in that only those who meet me in person would have it, if it weren't for Facebook, that is. "Private" information is, after all, information that can only be known by a certain group of people. In this case, the group is fairly wide; those who have met or seen me. In this sense, Facebook is responsible for this piece of "private" information regarding myself becoming "public", and as such, technically, I have less privacy.
Clearly, in this example, it doesn't make much difference that the "public" forum now knows I have brown hair. But what does matter? If I was a criminal, and that became knowledge that was available for the public, that would have an impact on my life, but if I were a criminal, would I really allow that information to get put on Facebook?
What I'm getting at, is that generally, things we put on social networking sites such as Facebook don't have that much influence on the rest of our lives. If we put extremely personal things on Facebook, then it can have an influence, but even then, sometimes, it does not. Considering the fact that I, and those I trust, such as friends and family, are the only people capable of posting, or reading personal information on my Facebook page, I see no need to worry about the effects my constructed "public" persona may have on life in the real world. Hopefully my opinion in regards to this topic remains the same, and isn't influenced by some terrible unforeseen Facebook drama. At this stage, however, I find it difficult to see what could really go wrong.
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