When I was younger, my father and Canadian uncle impressed on me the importance of limiting exposure of personal information on-line, with a view to minimise risk of identity theft (as you already mention). Of course, this was before the days of the social media revolution – so-called ‘Web 2.0’ – and I think the prevailing mentality has changed dramatically since then. I find it quite perplexing and ironic that people will often be overly concerned about the kind of information the government has on them, yet will be all too willing to give over all kinds of personal information to the likes of Facebook, et al. If the government can’t be trusted to have your well-being at heart, how can you expect that corporations will?

1. Interesting that at least the company worked for is a core part of LinkedIn. But certainly I wouldn’t expect the exact location of work should be standard information, that sounds like a bad idea – and as you say, an invitation for haters to come and find you.

Why would anyone accuse you of being a ‘white worshipper’, I don’t know. I think I am more ‘white’ than what you write about here. I suppose when you write publicly like this you have to expect anything. That’s why I could never be a member for parliament – I don’t have the thick skin needed for the job.

‘One job worked doesn’t wholly define you.’ I take that further and say work doesn’t – or shouldn’t – define you at all. We have a tendency, at least in the westernised Anglosphere, to ask ‘what do you do?’ when trying to make conversation. It might be a reasonable conversation point, but often the underlying mentality is that our occupations are what defines us – or at least is a major part of it. A peron in a low-paying job, however intelligent and over-qualified he or she might be, may be frowned upon or ostracised, simply because he/she has had to accept whatever job was available instead of the job he/she aspires to.

2. Heh, with the 2G shut-down in Australia I recently migrated to a ‘smart’ phone. I definitely keep the location function switched off most of the time, though – I only ever activate it if I need direction (like I did a couple of times while overseas recently) but always switch it off straight afterwards. I can certainly see the appeal of sharing real-time location with friends… but does that outweigh the risk of corporations or malicious hackers examining your real-time location and movement history? For me, it’s a definite no. (I recognise that even older mobile phones inherently have location tracking by virtue of having a specific cell tower your phone is connected to, but that’s at a very broad level.)

3. I found it hilarious – and also quite distressing – when I learned of some people posting photos of their credit card on social media. Even worse are those who are puzzled as to why people are asking them for a photo of the back… and do it anyway! And these are promptly followed by posts exclaiming that they’ve had to cancel their card because of big purchases suddenly being racked up on them…

4. Regarding plagiarism… sadly it will happen anywhere there is literary or artistic works published. I saw it when I was (more) active on deviantART and I fully expect that it still happens – it’s sad because it means popular artists will only ever publish tiny (as opposed to medium, still not full) resolutions of their works, which makes it harder to appreciate.

I hadn’t heard of those disabling plug-ins… but I’m sure anyone who knows even a bit about tech can circumvent them. I suppose they’re good for stopping the casual thief, though.

5. It’s the natural tendency for people to be self-centred (myself included) and part of that will often involve denigrating others, insulting them, and even just outright name-calling. The relative anonymity of on-line interactions provides an incentive for people to show their real selves. While I obviously don’t share here every single thought I have (or anywhere else for that matter), how I’ve written here is pretty much how I am in person. But I know not everyone is like that, which is why I’ve always appreciated – and I know I’ve mentioned this before – how you’ve promoted a constructive, respectful environment for people to discuss things here.

7. I’m not sure why anyone would post another’s secret – a confidence shared should be a confidence kept. If it’s as part of an illustration, names and locations should be obfuscated and details kept to a minimum. If it’s for ‘revenge’ or other malicious intent… well, see my remarks on point 5.

8. I think it’s fair to share some basic details, like mentioning a husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend in passing. eg ‘the other day my wife and I went to see X’. Really intimate details… no. While I’m not necessarily turned off by sappiness, and I think romantic love is a beautiful thing, I don’t think it’s necessarily appropriate to share that kind of information with all the world. Like with PDAs, a kiss on the lips is fine, full-on ‘snogging’ and groping… please, no.

As for photos… even when sharing holiday photos with colleagues, I generally won’t share photos with people I know in them. For their privacy as well as mine. Unless it’s a personal photo on a desk or on the phone, I probably wouldn’t share photos of a girlfriend either.
I’ve seen reports of those privileged few, who are paid to endorse their products to their followers. I think this was reported in Australia recently, where Asians come to share the sights and products of ‘down under’ with their followers back home.

Validation is definitely a big thing for some, particularly for younger folks. The prevalence of cyber-bullying in our current school-aged generation is sadly rife, and combined with the anonymity aspect I mentioned above can be devastating for some, even driving a few to suicide, sadly.

For me, I think the fact that I don’t use mainstream social media does make it hard for me to ‘expand my social circles’ as some of my English relatives have been encouraging me to do while on my recent visit. But for now I will stay off them, for the many of the reasons we’ve discussed here. On the other hand, I’ve been quite open and honest with some of the things I’ve written about here – could someone reconstruct my identity from that?

Quite possibly, I suppose, but it’s another level of difficulty than, say, pulling someone’s LinkedIn or Facebook account. So I’m definitely on the non-sharing or ‘anti-social’ end of the scale, and I sometimes wonder if my life could have turned out differently if I had been willing to share more of myself with others (I still remember my English school friend’s invitation to join Facebook – I declined and have since lost contact with him as I suppose he doesn’t use his e-mail address any more).

LikeLike