I’m currently writing a piece on how micro-blogging (we can include in that mix the mini-updates of moods and feelings on MySpace and Facebook) encourages increased levels of self-disclosure and, therefore, increased risks to privacy. It appears that those at particular risks are you people who, as the quotes below suggest, treat their online profiles as intimate journals rather than as the public spaces they in fact are. Whilst clearly this suggests risks to young people, it also hints at a generational shift in attitudes with regard the ownership of information and the boundaries between what young people consider public and private.
A privacy paradox: Social networking in the United States:
“Students may think that their Facebook or MySpace journal entries are private but they are actually public diaries.”
“Herein lies the privacy paradox. Adults are concerned about invasion of privacy, while teens freely give up personal information. This occurs because often teens are not aware of the public nature of the Internet.”
