Cyber Network Dangers

As we discussed in recent lecture, cyber socializing can be extremely dangerous if you are not careful. Facebook and Twitter have become absolutely huge in recent years. Facebook has over 300 million users and Twitter has around 60 million members. Ashton Kutcher (aplusk) has 4,577,798 followers on Twitter. We as the Y generation are growing up in a society where we face new dangers. These dangers were never present in the pre-Internet era. These dangers can cost you jobs, your pride, and sometimes your safety.

There are many precautions that we must take in order to remain safe while using cyber socializing sites. First of all, we should make all of our profiles private. Facebook has done a very good job of making this extremely simple. You can make every single action that you perform only viewable to specific people or groups. Also, if someone posts something on your wall or "likes" your status, you can make the only accessible to certain people as well. With all of this being said, a majority of people's profiles are completely public. This is not a good idea at all.

People of all ages should be extremely cautious with what they post online. The Internet is a public place; everyone that has access to the Internet can view it. I have heard of many stories from friends and others who have posted information of illegal events they are attending, for example a drinking party where underage kids will be present, online. The police are starting to use Facebook and other network socializing sites to help them get a step ahead and prevent anything that might be illegal or dangerous from occurring. Now I'm not saying that the police sit on their computers flipping through Facebook pages until they find something. They obviously have better things to do with their time, but they do use this tactic from time to time. You can learn a lot about a person from looking at their Facebook. The police and government are not stupid. They also know this and are using it to their advantage.

Employers are also using Facebook and other similar sites as part of their background checks for potential employees. If you have anything that an employer doesn't like on your Facebook profile, you are not going to get the job. If you have a bunch of pictures of you drinking and being reckless, regardless if you are underage or not, an employer is going to think that you are reckless and will not be a good employee. We must be very careful with what information we make public. We should make our profiles private and do not post anything that can be used against you in any way.

I believe that parents must teach their children at a young age the dangers of network socializing sites. Besides the fact that there are predators that pretend to be teenagers online and prey on real teenagers, the police, the government, and employers are using the Internet to gather information about certain people and events. If you do not want anyone to know your personal information, then do not post it on the public Internet.