Stephen James
Professor Mulliken
English 1113
1 December 2011
People of the Web
Technology has significantly changed over the past years as well as the people using our diverse technology. People have a tendency to reveal more information about them online than to give their information to someone in person. Although, people may reveal too much information online there are also people that may only put a small amount of information online.
People on the web tend to show a bountiful amount of personal or private information on different types of internet sites. The abstract of an article, Revealing only the superficial me: Exploring categorical self-disclosure online, uses a research study of 48 students and non-students to observe their attitudes towards online relationship formation questionnaire and relationships, personal matters, interests, and intimate feelings questionnaire. The research results show that people are more likely to reveal their information online the more positive their attitude towards forming relationships online. The research results from the abstract supports the argument that deals with the fact that people self-disclose their information on the internet than they would in real life. On a site dealing with forming relationships, it is human nature to reveal more and more information about yourself because of the type of attitude of wanting to be in a relationship with someone else online. The results from the research only dealt with one type of scenario of putting personal information on the internet that dealt with forming relationships on the web but there are also other types of examples of exploiting peoples information on the web that may come with consequences or benefits.
Not only do people display personal or private information on internet sites dealing with forming relationships but they also are displayed on social network sites as well. One type of example of information being displayed on social network sites is facebook. For example, whenever you go create your own facebook profile it asks you to reveal work, education, sports, art, entertainment, activity, interest, basic, contact information as well as pictures and things that maybe on your mind to all be revealed on your facebook profile. The reason why people may display all of the different categories of information on their facebook profile page is because there are privacy settings that can make all your information private or limited to who can see your information such as friends and family which also supports the argument about people displaying information on the web than in person. There are also consequences to revealing personal or private information on the web as well.
The fact that people tend to reveal information on the web than in person can cause a dangerous situation. The dangerous side to putting information on the internet are that there are computer genius’s that have the ability to hack computers if they want to, having a public facebook profile page, and even going along with computer scams on the internet. Consequences that will go along with putting information on the web is that once someone has your personal or private information from the internet, it can be very difficult to delete or cover up someone’s information on the web which can be used in a hurtful and embarrassing way against the person who put their information on the internet. A public facebook profile page can also be dangerous because it gives other people an opportunity to know everything they need to know about you without even knowing you on a personal level and can use all the information however they please. Internet offers can also be a dangerous situation because some sites may offer things that are pleasing to the eye and request all of your personal information and then the offer is actually an undercover computer scam that just wanted your information. There can also be benefits to revealing information on the web as well.
Consequences play a major role in revealing information on the internet but benefits play a major role in revealing information on the web as well. It is very rare, but it is possible to benefit from putting information on the internet because every internet web site does not always offer something that can somehow turnout to be a computer scam that scan cause virus’s on your computer or even be detrimental to you. For example, a friend of mine was looking for scholarships for college on the internet and while he was on a scholarship site he saw an offer for a free dell lap top at the top of the screen. The only thing my friend had to do is complete a Netflix movie trial and put in his address to send him the free laptop. My friend had to pay money to be able to go along with the Netflix trial but after he put his mailing information into the information box his free laptop had suprisingly showed up at his front door step within about two to three weeks. This supports the fact that putting information online seems more protected and beneficial rather than just giving someone you do not know your personal or private information.
People usually do not give other people their personal or private information if they do not know that person. It is not common for people to give their information in person because you can visually see that person and not on a computer screen which makes it less convincing to give information in person based the type of body language, tone, and attire of that person. The reason why people do not regularly give their information in person but instead online is because information such as credit card, social security, drivers licence, address, and contact information are not fully protected by a person based off of their human nature. Privacy settings can be applied to certain internet sites on the computer but there are no privacy settings you can apply on an actual human being because people cannot always be trusted especially people that you do not know. This logical reasoning supports that people display more information online than they would in person.
Although, people that have a tendency to reveal more information about them online than they do in person there are others that feel that this idea of revealing more information online than in person should be prevented. In the article, Ads Discourage Teen Girls from posting photos or info on myspace, friendstar, the national center for missing and exploited children believe that revealing more information online should be prevented because they are launching a think before you post campaign. The national center for missing and exploited children are launching this campaign because they want to discourage teenagers from posting personal information online due to the fact that one out of seven teenagers are sexually solicited or approached over the internet who post personal information online. The society today is definetly based on young sexual advertisement throughout the web because the youth are selected online due to posting all their personal information. People should stop posting all their personal information online period because the majority of the social networks have become a necessity of staying in contact with friends and family. If we step away from all the technology advances for a little while and go back to the old methods of staying in contact with people you know then maybe people would be more cautious of how they use the many types of technological devices that we have today.
People do not always think to not post any personal information online completely because posting personal information on any type of internet site can always have room for dangerous situations. The idea of not posting any personal or private information online simply means that your information cannot be hacked, used, or even used in computer scam whatsoever. For instance, one day as I was checking my personal e-mail an ad popped up on the middle of the screen telling me to claim my free ipad and a hundred dollar gift card. The prizes looked very pleasing to my eye because it was something I really wanted but even though I wanted the cool looking prizes I turned down the offer. The reason why I turned down the offer to claim my prizes because I knew that if I had given all the information the site had requested to receive my prize and if it had turned out to be a scam then my computer would have virus threats that could possibly damage the quality of my computer. This example proves that it is better to not take a risk at putting your personal information online which is in support of the fact that people should not display personal information on the web.
Revealing no personal or private information on the internet with less revealing information in person is never bad but it can sometimes be unfortunate. The reason why it is unfortunate to not display personal information on the web is because you never know if the offers on the web sites are computer scams or if they are actual real offers that actually let you receive what is offered to you. It is rare for a computer offer to actually let you receive what has been offered to you but it is not something that could not happened. If you are offered something online that you want and you put all your information to receive it then after awhile you actually receive what you were offered simply means that you got lucky.
People feel more obligated to display more of their personal or private information online than they would in person. Even though others feel that people should not display personal information online the fact that there different types of settings on the internet that make your information private proves that people feel safer displaying their personal or private information online.
Works Cited Page
Gonzales, Alberto. "Ads Discourage Teen Girls From Posting Photos Or Info On MySpace, Friendster." TechWeb (2007). LexisNexis Academic. Web. 30 Nov. 2011.
Attrill, Alison, and Rahul Jalil. "Revealing Only the Superficial Me: Exploring Categrical Self-disclosure Online." American Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 30 Nov. 2011.
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