Today’s openness is a normal thing. Internet and software has developed so much that everybody is now able to share everything in tremendous ways of blogging and free tracking web sites. Is that good or bad? There are many controversies about online privacy nowadays. The most recent and, in my opinion, very scary way of sharing is the geotagging, or more specifically, geoblogging. Originally, geotagging has been developed exclusively for professional need. These days you can find the function geotagging function in Google Maps, almost in every portable device, internet blog or social network. Seems to be pretty harmless. On one hand, it is quite useful and handy option. Here it is… I take a photo with my camera on my cell phone. If I am lucky enough to have brand new, expensive phone, I have the function ‘geotagging’. Immediately after I’ve shot my picture, I can see where I shot it. Even more exciting is that I can save this information and every time I go back to look for the photo I know where I took it. That is just awesome! On the other, there are web sites like ‘Ipoki’ which allows you to track and see people’s locations…for free. You can be tracked as well if you want to show your location via mobile phone’s GPS in real-time. This is undoubtedly dangerous. “We believe that Ipoki users should have control over their location information and who can see it.” This is official statement of Ipoki owners to users. That’s good, but still, everybody can sign up there for free and immediately become your ‘friend’ in case he or she wants to monitor you 24/7. Isn’t that outrageous?
Twitter is a hype
22.11.2009
“Twitter? What exactly it is all about?” This is a question which most of the people ask themselves. Well, the one and, in my opinion, only thing is that you are posting what you are doing in every single moment. And that’s it. Some people say that is useful and instead of phoning your friends for the things you do in certain moment, you can just share them in Twitter. However, no one wants to know that you are in the toilet or having a coffee or finding a parking lot right know! If they do…well, I’m sorry for them. May be, the idea of “twitting” is quite good, but posts in Twitter went far away from any boundaries. I was trying to find a point in all that, and I actually did: people may not be able to talk on the phone right now to say their impressions, for instance of a good concert or a party they are at, so let’s Twitter it. But why everybody has to know this? Like big part of Facebook usage, Twitter is used to get more attention to you. Celebrities have Twitter account and post everything about their lives. This might be exciting for people, whose main interests are everything which refer to celebrity life. So when my favourite celebrity has Twitter, I must get one too! That is why Twitter is a hype. I think that people have to focus on real emotions and to share them with friends. Sharing feelings and emotions is a man-to-man action, not me-to-the-World-Wide-Web.
The end of privacy on social networks
10.11.2009
“A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and/or activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others.” This is how Wikipedia defines social networks. But are they so useful, harmless and safe? In the recent years social networks like Facebook or MySpace have become vastly widespread all over the world. The reasons for this could be many. Recently, a research from Swiss sociologists and scientists has been made which exposes that most of the people who are logging in social networks like Facebook are simply narcissistic. Moreover, a survey among over 1000 American students has been done which states that 57% of them use their social network profile just to get more attention to them or of egomania. That need for more attention drives people to display everything from their lifestyle in their social network page. Furthermore, there are functions and application, for instance in Facebook, which allow people to put information about their family tree. Even not going so far, your birth date, full name, place of birth and a picture of you are enough for people to monitor, track, and even find you easily if they want. An example: to use some fancy, nice-looking, amusing application in Facebook, you should first allow its access to “some” of your personal information. It is mentioned nowhere what kind of information it will use and how much of it. Canadian sociologists are even going further stating that social networks like Facebook destroy the trust in relationships. They have studied the behaviour of around 300 students, who had their own Facebook page, and realised that during the examination jealousy, doubts and suspicions between the partners rose.
