Wednesday, October 16, 2013
The advantages and disadvantages of our diminshing concern about privacy
In the world we live in today, it is very challenging to go about our everyday tasks if we were privacy freaks and really concerned about every little bit of information we share. I think in a general sense, we are all concerned about our privacy. However when comparing our opportunity cost of trying to completely protect our privacy with the gains; we choose to not pay the time and effort to go the extra mile in securing our information. The main reason behind our lack of effort is that we do not really see any realistic and direct threats that we might face, as a result of not protecting our information. Even though the risk of threats caused by revealing our privacy is not direct and visible, it definitely still exists. We should not ignore the risk just because it is very small. For example, I see my friends posting their locations all over Facebook and always mentioning where they are staying and hanging out. If they think about the number of people in their Facebook friends' list they never actually met in person, which means they are revealing their location to complete strangers. How can we ever be sure who is out there looking over our pictures and locations and how they are being used? Even if the risk of a freak seeing our personal information is 0.1%, I do not see why we should take it for the sake of fun and convenience? I do not see any direct benefits from posting our location to other people to see where we are dining tonight or where we went shopping, I mean seriously what is the percentage of our Facebook friends that would actually care to find out?! Of course it is up to every individual on how they want to customize their Facebook pages and posts, but let's think about the direct advantages of giving up our privacy to the public and compare them to the disadvantages. If the disadvantages outweigh the advantages, then maybe we should rethink our actions, sorry just cannot help it but think economically especially when it is my major! (Please note that I'm guilty of posting my pictures and locations as well!)
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I would have to agree with you on this. I truly think that when individuals use the internet, they are giving up their right to any kind of privacy. This is not to say that we would not expect things like our credit card numbers or our social security numbers to be concealed, however, other things like our interest, the pages we visit frequently, our location, things like that are given up when we access the internet. Whether it's for advertisers or the government, each of us make the choice to use things such as Facebook and input our information, so we should not be so shocked when that information is being used in other ways. The simplest way for us to maintain "privacy" would simply be to not use these things. Since we as a society are not willing to do that, and are almost sucked in without the ability to protest, we will continue to give up information about ourselves everyday. I do agree that we can be careful. We should not have to avoid things like Facebook everyday in fear of information being shared, but we can be proactive in what is voluntarily being shared, such as our locations or plans being shared in a status. My dad never let us post on Facebook when the whole family was going to be out of town, and no one would be at the house, in fear of the wrong person finding out and something terrible happening. I think that is great advice. Everyone should be careful and protect themselves when they are completely in control of the situation.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. We definitely have to think twice about posting this kind of information in the web since we do not know who is going to have access to it. I have known of a couple of cases where people have gone through some difficult and uncomfortable situations due to some information that they posted on the web and that strangers misused it. Therefore, I agree with your advice and rethinking the benefits and disadvantages of posting this kind of information.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your comments and for taking the time to read my post. I totally agree with what you guys said here. I thought I might bring out the issue since many of us do it with out even notice and even if there is a very small chance of this act harming us so why do it at all.
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