Thursday, May 20, 2010

Are we too exposed?

Facebook, Twitter, My Space, My Yahoo, Blogs, Dating Sites, Photo sharing sites, work websites, etc. our information is everywhere. We share updates, photos, bios, and stories with the world on the world wide web but has this left us and our information vulnerable. Thanks to Facebook and Twitter updates I can tell you who's on vacation, who's husband is out of town, who's out of their house running errands, how many children someone has, and in some cases a vague idea of where someone lives without a lot of effort.

Now I am not paranoid about being out on the internet...I met my husband through Yahoo Personals, I blog regularly, I use Shutterfly to print my photos, I design and am mentioned on my work website, I have a rarely used Facebook account, and an even less used My Space account. I've avoided Twitter for the most part...I signed up to follow someone and decided it would drive me nuts so I quit. I admit though, that I'm cautious about what I put out there. I don't mention my husband's name on my blog. Although I'm not sure why other than his privacy. I put pictures of us out on my blog and my Facebook site (particularly pics of my puppies). But I admit I don't put a lot of details about us on my Facebook site. And I edit what I put out on my blog so it is personal and yet not detailed.

But you do hear of online stalking, false profiles on dating sites, and other scams. So the question arises have we made ourselves too vulnerable with online information? Once we put it online it is permanent we can't take it back and it is open to everyone who wants to see it.

So what do you think do the pros outweigh the cons when it comes to an online presence?     

1 comments:

Molly said...

I think that teenagers are way to exposed. They don't have the maturity to realize the far reaching consequences of their actions and making a huge public mistake is way to easy. I think I'm OK with what I put out there. I'm past the age where I love to show myself off or shock people.

But now I'm worried about my elderly parents. They are online and on facebook but click on every single that pops up. They just got billed for some spyware they didn't order and have had their credit card number stolen by someone in another country.

But the internet has opened up a whole new world to a lot of people .... me included.