Social Networking And How Peer Pressure Can Cause Security Issues
If you are not using a social networking tool, then most likely you feel pretty ancient right now. Just about everywhere we look these days, social networking sites envelope us. As a matter of fact they slowly choke us to death or at least that is how it feels with the burden of having to join this and that site.
If you don’t twitter, you are simply not cool these days. Alternatively, if you are not part of MySpace you are not in the loop. Stumblers are also a force to be reckoned with, especially for bloggers. But who says so anyway?
Perhaps the millions of people who join these sites every month to converse with like minded people world wide. Or else the trend setters. Who knows, but what is clear is that social networking is robbing us of our time.
Do you ever feel pressured to join social networking sites because it is the in thing to do right now? I find that bloggers are neatly pressured into this template of behaviour. Everywhere we look, we are urged to join yet another social networking site.
Soon enough this can become not only time consuming, but also very confusing.
But wait, there is more
Besides the time issues, the peer pressure and what not, there is another alarming trend that surfaces in social networking.
Security holes.
Many social networking sites are spruced up with the help of free applications. What many network users don’t know, is that some of these applications are actually posing a huge security threat to us and our privacy.
They monitor our online behavior, bombard us with relevant advertisements and maybe even steal private information from us without us knowing.
Because everybody takes part in these networks, users don’t think there are issues for concern. But if you are to believe an article that was released by AP yesterday, there is rising concern on whether our information really is a as safe as we’d like to believe it is.
What do you think? Do you feel pressured to use these social networking sites and if yes, why? How safe do you feel by giving out personal information on these platforms?
Related posts:
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- Plugin: Keep Track of Social Networking Posts
- MyBlogLog: Social Networking for Bloggers
- How Important Is Networking For You?
- Role of Social Networks in Blogging
No Responses to “Social Networking And How Peer Pressure Can Cause Security Issues”
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Funny how most of us felt like it’s a MUST to sign up whenever your friends send you an invitation to join these social networking sites.
I will take my own sweet time before I really sign up. Also, I’m so ancient I haven’t even done anything with my stumble upon account. I have the tool bar installed but don’t know what it does.. LOL!
I don’t sign up for any site because I have received an Invitation in my inbox. I am happy with my current social profile and what is the need for several different profiles and data spread all over the web.
@ Kay: perhaps we can call it the “get it now before you are left behind effect”. I’m not sure but I do admit that I had felt like joining this and that in the past until I realized that it is simply not possible to bake cake in every bakery.
By concentrating on a couple of accounts instead I have saved myself hours of wasted time.
@ Siddharth: I think that is the smart thing to do.
I also did not go beyond Orkut. That’s the only social networking place I am at now. After receiving so many invitations from friends on WAYN and like sites, I did not sign up. First and foremost thing is, I don’t have time to get enrolled in each and every web 2.0 site, secondly it does not make any sense to create an account and not being active.
All these social networking sites I am urged to join make me insane. I am going crazy with all the flood of information that comes constantly.
As far as the security issue is concerned, these days most of us who are on the net know we have given our information away, so in my humble opinion we might just as well be getting paid for it at this point which is what happens with a lot of the sites I am at.
Don’t flood me with emails getting angry about my comment either, please remember don’t kill the messenger, you already know this.
RoxieB5
I don’t really know why I am bothering to reply because I try to steer clear of negative people.
Why this downer on everything!!!
The world is a dangerous place because we have lost our moral way but do you stop going out or living.
Food is bad for you if you abuse it and eat too much.
I have been building websites since 1992 and have heard the negative approach to the Internet in general all along the way. When I was first trying to set up e-commerce sites the banks were hopeless – and kept saying the Internet was insecure and they wouldn’t let merchants trade on-line. That is how WorldPay and PayPal came into being – simply because the banks were too negative.
Yes the internet has a lot of dark sides but you have to learn to use it responsibly like anything else. If I go to London I can choose to go to the Museums and Art Galleries and all the wonderful things that city offers or go to the seedy red light districts. Because the red light districts exist it doesn’t mean I don’t go to London.
Facebook is fantastic if used sensibly. Myspace is not my cup of tea so I don’t join it. Simple isn’t it – there is choice. To dismiss Social Networking out of hand is frankly ……
I will tell you what – I joined Twitter last week and have through that learned more in one week about marketing than from all the nonsense peddled out all the time by the so called gurus of the Internet. Why and how – because I found out straight away who my mentors were going to be on using that technology and followed them. I don’t choose to follow many – but those I do follow are worth their weight in gold.
Please just get out there and find people you respect and learn from them. Social Networking doesn’t mean you have to mix with the devil. When the technology moves on as it surely will move to the next advance. Very stimulating and I love it.
Please just enjoy life – you only live once and stop moaning.
Keith
[...] my best attempts though I read one of those moany whingeing type of blog entries this morning – (I must admit on a blog site that I usually enjoy) – which prompted me to leave a [...]
@ Keith: good comment, although I really don’t know why you feel that the writer (me) has a negative approach to social networking when in fact I pointed to a third party article.
I’m also not sure why you say stop moaning as nobody moans except you on the blog post you posted in regards to my post.
I’m actually enjoying life very much, thank you and I certainly have a very positive attitude to life in general.
This post was written for sheer information and nothing else. If you go back and read it, you will actually see that I’m asking you (the reader) for feedback.
Also in the comments I pointed out that I used to join every network I came across before realizing that it was simply too much. Now I happily use two main social networks.
Not sure what this has got to do with moaning at all?
Guess moaning is a bit strong I am sorry – I guess why your piece got to me is that I am tired of having all the things that can go wrong with the net being peddled about all the time.
It is the most phenomenal communication tool. But like all things good there are cretins out there to try to ruin it. Don’t keep giving them the satisfaction of knowing that they are getting to people.
To this day I know people even in my own family that will not go on the web because they have heard it is an insecure and bad place to be. Where have they got this from – the media. Huh!
The first time that I came across the networking approach was on a webiste called Ecademy – a business network site. It blew me away and I remember going to a meeting arranged through the site where it was possible to look up all the profiles of the people who were going to be at the meeting. I arrived at a meeting of total strangers but with quite intimate and detailed knowledge of the people I really wanted to do business with. What a fantastic experience.
You can get to know people incredibly well through social networking and rather than the public face you see when you meet someone for the first time in the flesh you can actually get to know a much more important part of the person – their mind.
Let’s sing the praises of Social Networking and find ways to crush those who are out to spoil every party . If it is insecure of course we have to tackle that but not at the expense of the fantastic advances in communication that this brings.
Have a good day Monika – I urge you to look at Twitter if you haven’t done so already – if you follow me I will guide you to some great guys and gals around the web http://www.twitter.com/KeithWatson
I read that news article about the security holes and it really did get me thinking. I’ve been ignoring all those social networking sites I signed up for… just never had much use for them and always considered them big old time-wasters. Maybe it’s time to go back and actually delete those unused accounts! Well, StumbleUpon is actually kinda fun and not too time consuming. But I just never got the point of Twitter.
@ Keith: glad we got this sorted.
I accept your apology and actually understand what you mean.
Like you, I try to stay away from negative people as life is too short to constantly worry. Yet, we mustn’t ignore the bad things by just closing our eyes to them hoping they will go away if we ignore them either.
BTW, this isn’t meant for social networking at all, or the Internet. I love the Internet and all the good things that come with it, which in my eyes are plenty.
If it wasn’t for the net or social networking for that matter I wouldn’t have made as many great friends from all around the world as I have.
I actually discovered Twitter not so long ago and already love it. Although this past week I didn’t participate as I had other priorities, so I will definitely follow you so we can communicate some more.
Anyway, if my post struck a negative chord with you, it wasn’t intended that way and for that I’m also sorry. I realize that while I see something a certain way, others don’t and I can’t blame them for it.
@ Sue: Like you I’ve done the same and ignored many sites I signed up with. In the end, they got my name and my email address which is freely available on the Internet anyway, therefore I don’t actually worry about it myself.
For me social networking is merely very time consuming and by choosing a couple of sites it has helped me to be more focused on my work.
Twitter is really cool actually. It is a great networking tool that allows you to get to know many bloggers on a more private level.
Thanks for the link to the article Monika – I feel vindicated!
My friends and contacts on Facebook don’t understand why I don’t download all the cool little apps they keep sending me. While I’d love to see them and test them out – and my finger itches to click that “accept application” button – I just can’t pull the trigger.
Security IS important, and we’ve become all too trusting in this online world. We would never think of giving our personal information to the guy we meet at the park, yet we freely distribute all over the net. Facebook tells us that they are not responsible for these applications, and we have no idea who is creating them and gathering our information. It’s one thing to give it up for Amazon or other perceived secure site, but quite another to hand our information over to some nameless, faceless application developer. I recognize that most of them are legitimate, but for me, the benefits do not outweigh the risks. Great post!
@ Stephanie: thank you for the heads up. You are so right.
It is great to see somebody else’s view on these matters and I think it is safe to say that most people are quite apprehensive by giving out private info.
I also liked your comparison to the guy in the park as this really drives home the point.
I used to register or simply give these social networking sites a try. But managed only to maintain 1. And left all the not so friendly ones behind.
But right now, I found linked in a more professional and business sounding way of social networking. Less spam, cleaner, direct to the point and simple.