Facebook Privacy: Why it Doesn't Matter Much to Me

Recently, there has been a lot of negative attention focused on Facebook's changing privacy policies.

Upon learning that things on my profile might become less private, I hurried to check my privacy settings. Almost everything on my wall can be seen by friends only. It was really easy to do. I clicked about 3 buttons/links to change my settings.

I scratched my head, wondering why people are so freaked out by changes that are easily addressed and tweaked. Seriously, people, this isn't rocket science.

But then I remember that I belong to the digital generations, the ones who grew up around computers. I doubt my mother would have been able to figure out her privacy settings so easily.

Still, I feel like nothing much has drastically changed for me regarding privacy. 

We all know the government listens in on our phone conversations. They minister basically everything digital we day and do. This isn't old news. So I'm not sure why the idea of face-recognition and privacy changes are such a big deal to people.

Our privacy has already been compromised. As long as I'm not posting pictures that make sure I don't get hired (and I don't) then I should be fine. There's nothing on my Facebook wall I don't mind the public seeing. Everything else is hidden. 

Bellyachers need to understand how to use the tools at their disposal, or not use them at all. We gave up privacy a long time ago, with the advent of the Web, but we can still manage what the public sees.

Response to Mukurtu's tweet on tech/teen relationships

Kim Christen, Twitter username @mukurtu, posted a link about myths concerning technology and its negative effect on teenagers.

 This article is a perfect example of one side of the two-sided spectrum of coverage concerning technology: on one side, there is hype, and on the other, there is extreme alarm. This article addresses 5 commonly-held alarmist ideas held by parents across America and anywhere young adults have access to the internet.

What I really like about this article is that it debunks these theories, which have no factual evidence to support them. Some of these myths include "teens are addicted to technology" and my personal favorite, "the more time teens spend behind screens, the more antisocial they become."

I wanted to see what the real "alarmist" section had to say about this, so I went scrounging around the web to find a similarly-written article. On the same website of @mukurtu's article, the Huffington Post, I found a gigantic variety of opinion pieces, including  "Here's What A Constantly Plugged-In Life Is Doing To Kids' Bodies" to "Teen Texting: The Ruin of Romance."

I was expecting to boldly disagree with the majority of these articles. However, I found myself unable to discount some of the concerns and questions raised. After all, just as I refuse to believe technology is making us all stupid, I am also equally hesitant to dismiss ideas that texting has changed young love and child development. (Side note: the word "texting" is spell-checked by the Blogger website....what?)

Clearly, the pros and cons of technology lay somewhere in the grey area between the hype-alarmist end-caps, jumbled up with the decisions we make and how we use these tools at our disposal. It would never be as simple as black and white, who are we kidding? There's always been hype and alarm, and there will always be truth somewhere in between the two, depending on the ways we use technology.