As I have blogged before, mediated social identity raises complex issues. And so it is fitting that I share with you a recent experience that has impacted upon my ability to enjoy the relative freedom of navigating across various digital media (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube to name but few!).
The dilemma is like this: You want to be ‘findable’, ‘searchable’ and ultimately contactable to various networks of links whether they are informal ‘friends’ or more formal business connections. This means that your profile stands in for You, and cultivates a social presence in your physical absence. However, the same You does not want to be so ‘open’ that you leave yourself over-exposed and prey to nut jobs, odd jobs, or just annoying jobs.
Ironically part of my ‘expertise’ is the management of mediated social connections and interactions that I pride myself in being able to cultivate and maintain in a fluid and savvy manner (check out the Facebook Etiquette blog). BUT, where all the manners and safe guards in the world come apart is when someone is out to consistently and rather ruthlessly target you.
Thankfully there are strategies that can (and have in my case) be employed: Re-calibrating your privacy settings on SNS’s so that you can only be searched by specific networks and/or contacted only through ‘trusted’ and ‘validated’ friend requests is one way. Another could be to limit the information that is displayed on the profile: Mobile phone number(s), personal email, home address all off, off, off! Not that mine had any of these.
So where does this leave us?
Too concerned to share identifiable points of contact, OR are we just in need of a greater awareness about associated privacy decisions, complexities and social relationships. Lets not forget that we make, and are used to making, these kinds of judgements on a daily basis in our ‘offline’ lives (you cross the road to avoid that ‘weirdo’ right). Perhaps then this is really about social context where the privacy considerations that include security, social disclosure, visibility, identity and convenience all need to be treated with the same intuitive and context-aware instincts online as they do offline…
So are we all ‘over-exposed’ or is this a matter of personal taste, comfort and in/ability?
An interesting aspect to my own research is the willingness of younger generations to share with one another the ‘who’ and ‘where’ they are at all times. Something those of my fathers generation do not feel at all comfortable with or are used to.
I’m going to continue to investigate further into this these issues and look for distinct patterns…
Meanwhile my advice, play it ‘safe’ out there. Or the chick gets it!
Chick Pic: LluisGerard’s photos Flickr
@ anon,
could not have put it better myself – and yes a timely posting indeed! Such is the astute nature of your observations I would love love love to use your comment as a part of my chapter 6 that is about social surveillance, sorting and implicit/explicit forms of social power, knowledge and control.. hmm i’m going to have to cut down that title!
anyways persmission to use your comment as a part of my ‘data’ would be dream!
Hi Maz, interesting and timely post.
There is more than one kind of overexposure and any of them can be a burden.
For example, posting a comment on an exposed site leads to curious enquiries from strangers who “like something they’ve seen”,
or to persistent targetted invasion of privacy and unwanted targetted messages (these people can usually be blocked),
and to an array of public opinions in responses based on that post.
As another example, especially on Facebook, one is bombarded with antisocial spam resulting from the undiscriminating and viral “invite a friend”. This results from a deliberate choice by the sender to be complicit with such applications.
On the other hand, one can accidentally provide too much info by failing to identify all the places where feeds or tagging are enabled – and when there is more than one place to define this, it can be a chore to continually find them all – for this one we just have to exercise some patience with our friends while they get all the adjustments right – and if we have allowed ourselves too many “friends” then we will suffer from a deluge. [Hasty and paranoid triple checks on settings
]
We don’t have to be so patient with the developers, who have some responsibility to handle these privacy definitions effectively. This will improve as the audience starts to provide feedback.
Exposure also occurs when information is made available without explicit consent.
A significant problem is to be exposed in a way of which we are ignorant – eg an implicitly compromising photo which identifies us on a site we don’t use. This is not a new problem – gossip has always done this.
There is also the question of changing seats of power…who decides what and how much information people should be allowed to share? Do we feel uncomfortable because our friend has more to say than we do?
I would like to be able to determine a hierarchy of privacy online. Some things I am happy to share with the world, others with just my family or closest friends.
Privacy by social divisions and also per item.
This way, we know our friend has “chosen” to inform us.
It seems that it isn’t just “what you are comfortable with” because there is this lack of gradient on what we are happy to deliver versus a filter on what we are happy to receive.
You can always use those merry little streams of status to let people know exactly what you’ve had enough of from your friends
what counts is individual identity on Web 2.0. This means that you meet some weirdos along the way. Open source, just means open identity. Be prepared to have a better knowledge of how to set your privacy up online.
@ Divided
A GG SNS, well now there is an idea. Although for now until such a supportive network of links we do have a FB group to piggyback off. And there’s the blog of course!
The split that you mention is certainly pertinent to daily routines. For exmpale my own connections across FB tend to differ from those on LinkedIn. But there are cross-overs.
At one point: Convergence, at another I would prefer to keep these two aspects of ‘work’ and ‘play ‘ separate. Maybe a widget to rule them all?…
@ cautious academic
Thank you for the privacy and FB related research, i do indeed know about this! fascinating stuff!
And yes you are right when you astutely point out that it is all to do with Trust (with a capital T).
Im now trusting only my networks and points of contact to those i ‘know’!
You point to the way SNS can be a one route onto the Net so that business, pleasure etc are run though it. This works well if your 12 or 18 but as the need to take on real work emerges many of us split into SNS for social life and another(s) for work. Can’t work out if this divide will continue or if a new set of micro SNS that can be fed but separate from a main SNS will emerge. For example Girly Geek could easily add in a micro SNS for its’ members.
from one academic to another you might be interested in some recent reserach on Facebook and privacy.
Personally it’s about what you are comfortable with and how prepared you are to be accountable with what you put online. Understanding the politics of this is tricky as you have highilighted in the post.
At this moment in time the individual is culpable as the authorities are not ready nor know how to deal with these issues.
As you say though ultimately this is about trust. Let’s not be too idealistic about that though!