When you’re younger, you have zero privacy. Your parents bathed you and you more than likely ran around naked in front of family a few times. When you hit puberty, your teenage-self tried closing doors to gain a little bit more seclusion. However, your parents never let you close the door the whole way, or always interrupted at the inopportune times.
When you’re in high school, you had very limited privacy. Between P.E. class and sports practice, you become used to undressing in front of strangers. Then somewhere along the way social media evolved and you grew accustomed to sharing every aspect of your life with your online friends.
Privacy is something we all seem to crave, yet give up every single day. It seems like we are always compromising our security. Social media doesn’t help with controlling our privacy either.
Even with ability to change privacy settings on your social media accounts, you still feel exposed. It’s a weird thing, feeling the need to share your whole life on social media. If you begin dating someone it’s not “official” until you post it on social media. The responsibility we feel to post about the exciting things in life on social media limits our privacy. Most of the time, we do not even realize we’re giving up our privacy.
Every time you go on vacation, or make a big investment, you post about. You’re presenting yourself in a way that you think will best represent yourself. The time you spend posting and perfecting your image on social media, can take away from your true self.
Ever noticed when you run into old friends and they already know all about your current life? Have you ever talked about an old high school friend with your current friend and judged all of their life choices you’ve seen them make through their social media? Everyone talks about everyone, and you open yourself up to that kind of scrutiny when you post on social media.
Even through you’re not young anymore, and you don’t have worry about your parents intruding on you, you still have to control yourself when it comes to your privacy. Being aware of what you’re putting out into the Internet world will help you control the amount of privacy you have in your life. Draw the line for your privacy and limit what you share.
