Privacy: Thing Of The Past?

I am an extremely private person. If I am sharing something, it is typically something I don’t care if the entire world sees it. For me, it isn’t a digital/virtual issue. I am the same way with face to fact interactions. Trust is something I highly value in relationships. If I trust someone enough to share my life, it’s a decision I do not make lightly. Furthermore, that’s something only a few people get to share. I don’t rant and rave on the internet. Almost everything I post is general knowledge that gives a small glimpse into my life or my thought process. My privacy settings are the same face to face as online.

Photo via via Visualhunt

However, that is not always or typically the case. Being controversial is a thing that is quite promoted today. Everyone thinks it’s his/her responsibility to constantly share opinions on everything. A mom posts a picture of herself (she’s very fit) and her three kids stating, “What’s Your Excuse?” It went viral within minutes and EVERYONE had something to say about it. Or a father taking a picture for his wife of him doing his daughter’s hair and then posting about all the negative and positive reviews, “I Have A Dream That People Will View a Picture Like This and Not Think It’s a Big Deal.” People say things online that they would never say in person.

I am constantly reminding my students that everything they post for school is public and anyone in the world with internet access can read and view what they post. I had a more instense level of this last year with my 8th grade students. Many of them were having people anonymously post inappropriate and down right hateful things on their Facebook and Ask.fm. Students were retaliating back to these things and the drama kept escalating. In my advisory, we watched the movie, Cyberbully. We discussed how actions in person and online can be equally hurtful and damaging.

As I was grading my students’ vlog post, one student discusses internet safety.

Infograph to help ensure your privacy settings are exactly what you want them. Sometimes I use the Firefox private window and Chrome’s Incognito window to browse. As private as I am, I still need to follow more the suggestions on the infograph. In the article, “How Private Is Your Social Media?” it gives statistics about posts online. It mentions that students feel confident in their privacy settings. Yet, I know that many of them do not “know” their friends on Facebook. Some are friends of friends of friends or someone they met once during a social event.