Online identities.

Today’s class discussion about Facebook and online identities honestly got me a little concerned. Facebook is a relatively safe social networking site because of the way it is monitored by those who run it, but now that we’ve looked at it closely, I’m feeling a little vulnerable by having a Facebook page. It’s an honest representation of me, but do I really want to keep personal information in such a public space? Facebook is regulated so that only those I approve as friends can see my information, but let’s be honest, we all approve people as friends who we don’t really know that well. Maybe we just remember going to the same high school or know they sat in the back row in that one lecture from last semester. Just because we know OF a person doesn’t mean we KNOW them, yet we approve them as a friend and allow access to our information and consequently anyone hanging around their computer at the time of Facebooking can see it too. I’m torn between wanting to keep in touch with various people and wanting to delete my account because it’s starting to feel a little too public.

 

As for those Multi-User Domains where people live virtual lives through an avatar – those worlds seem to me to be drawing people away from real life experiences. Instead of going out, being social and actually doing activities, people play on their computers and have their avatar do things they could be doing. To me, this is taking away the value of personal relations. A virtual relationship – friendship, romantic, any of the sort – is not the same as a real life relationship. I think setting oneself up with expectations for a social life in a virtual world will only lead to an eventual disappointing realization that their social health has suffered after focusing on a virtual life rather than their real life.

 

The extent to which my computer stores information is also worrisome. I love that it saves and stores favorite Web sites, music, documents for school, and pictures for my personal use. However, since I’ve learned that Web sites track my internet habits and use cookies (not the tasty kind) to store information on my computer, I feel as if my privacy is invaded. I don’t like that certain advertisements are showing up on my computer because the browsers track trends they see about me. Sometimes it’s good to have information relative to my interests brought to me, but mostly I prefer it didn’t work that way. If someone in advertising knows what my interests are or random demographic information about me, what else might they know? What might some tech-savvy creepo hacker know about me?

 

I’m not liking how smart the internet has become. And yet I need it to be super smart as my go-to source for almost any information I seek these days. Technology and its evolution seem like necessary evils that yield positive and negative contributions to society that we could not live without. Good grief!