Over sharing

Modern technology is a wonderful thing.  It enables us to see the world in a new way, to keep in close contact with our friends and family, make new friends even and so much more.  Social media has taken a huge hold on the world and has become a whole new way to communicate, promote and even work. It can be a huge support network to people in so many different ways, but Is this always a positive thing?

I'm not sure that it always is. Our love of social media in particular allows us to leave huge digital foot prints wherever we go and most of us don't even realise we are doing it or of the implications that that could have.

I repeatedly hear sorry tales of people who have had problems at work and even lost jobs as a result of comments made, photos shown and even videos that have been put on the internet.  I am talking about adults here too, people who really are old enough to know better.  A friend of a friend recently rang in sick a while back and then spent the day on social media and it became clear to their bosses that this was a duvet day rather than a genuine sick day and the repercussions were quite serious.  Sometimes, it isn't even always the person's fault.  We now live in a world where everyone has a mobile phone glued to the palm of their hands and if you are doing something you shouldn't, there is a good chance that someone else will be recording it for posterity and the temptation to show it to the rest of the world can often be too great.  

But on a personal level, it does seem to have become the norm to over share.  From what we eat for our breakfast to details about our sex lives, it is almost as though some people are so engrossed in their lives online that they forget about the real world.  Once something has been posted, it is out there for the world and his wife to see.  Now I spend more than my fair share of time online, but I am still amazed at times about the way some people behave online; whether it be their attitude towards others or the amount of information that they give away. 

Which leads me onto my next point and that is how much people reveal about their personal lives online.  This digital footprint that we leave can pretty much tell people where we are and what we are doing at any given point.  I recently downloaded Foursquare and I haven't really used it as I'm not sure that I want the world to know exactly where I was all the time. But having said that, I use other apps which include maps of my location, which pretty much do the same thing.  

I was quite naive when I first started using Twitter and it was only a few months in when a lovely lady sent me a direct message to tell me that my exact location came up at the bottom of all my tweets.  I was so glad that she did tell me as I had no idea.  Having asked a few people that I know who use Twitter, most of them didn't realise that it happened either and it is really important that when you sign up to a social media account, you go through the privacy settings and adjust them accordingly.

For criminals, this new era of communication is a great thing.  Gone are the days of the opportunist thieves, why would you need to be when there are lots of people online happily giving their private details away.  If you are going on holiday, why not put it on every social network so that the world can see that your house is empty for a period of time.

I was watching breakfast television a few weeks ago and there was a family whose house had been broken into when they were away on holiday as their teenage children had liberally posted on social network sites that they were going abroad for two weeks.  I have to admit that even I; who is no expert in these matters, don't make it known when we are away.  For me it is common sense but there is a message to all of us with teens in the house, it is certainly worth talking to them about the information they put online as it seems that they often don't see the potential implications of 'oversharing'.

All of this probably seems ironic from someone who writes a blog and share aspects of her family life online through social media and I would be the first person to admit that I love both blogging and social media.  There are so many positive aspects to it for all of us and whilst i do occasionally have moments where I do consider the bigger picture and the implications of my online life, the positives do outweighs the negatives.  But in spite of that, caution is most definitely required.

Social media is taking a bigger and bigger hold on people's lives and it isn't going anywhere in a hurry.  But I do think the issue of over sharing is one that we need to think about.  Even if we are careful about the way we behave online and the information we share, as parents we really must teach our children about social media and how to use it safely.  There isn't any real issue with sharing photos of what you had for tea or chatting about aspects of daily life, but a 'think before you send' philosophy is a good one to adopt when using social media.  It is better to be safe than sorry.