What do the you think about the social media and their privacy? Are you consequent that everything is on the net and anyone can see/use it?

I don’t know what teenagers know. I warn my kids about protecting privacy, but I was brought up in an extremely private family. Some people say their lives are an open book. I’m not sure I believe them, but that’s what they say.

I think the dangers of giving up privacy may be overstated. Occasionally there might be predators of one kind or another, but that is very rare—on the net, as in life. The publicity makes it seem so much more prevalent.

However, I guess I think of this as the Geraldo phenomenon. People are willing to display any kind of shame if it will get them attention. They seem to think that any kind of attention, even bad attention, is better than no attention at all.

There may be a class element at play, too. People with less training in manners may be more willing to shout out their problems for all to hear, while people who are highly trained, may feel extremely uncomfortable in hanging out their dirty laundry for all to see.

Teens, being younger, have less training. They also have less experience. They don’t know how things might come back to haunt them. They may not yet realize how long some people’s memories are. Then again, many people’s memories are quite short, and these days, it is not uncommon for porn actors to end up doing mainstream movies.

There might be a lot of religion going around, but it doesn’t seem to dampen folks down much. Kids often seem to do what feels good, instead of thinking about the long term. Maybe it’s schools that are failing; maybe parents; or maybe times are just different, and notariety is more important that morals.

In general, no, people underestimate the ability to find information on the Internet, and consequentially put a lot of pictures/info public that should really be private. The only real way for them to learn is to hear the repercussions that other people have regarding such actions.

But this is not just a teenager thing. In fact, in my experience, it’s adults who have a hard time setting up the proper filters to ensure their privacy remains solid, and it’s teenagers who know how to do such with ease. Then again, teens are the ones who are embracing social media most and thus contribute the most information, and also the ones who contribute information which could pose problematic to their future careers (drinking pictures, etc).