Friday, June 21, 2013

Life in June: Getting Real About the Internet


Catch up here!
 29things
Number 6: The Internet is Forever….For.ev.er.
I know, this is rich coming from a girl who documents her life regularly here and on Twitter. But please, hear me out.
I hate Facebook. Like loathe, every little bit of that dumb website. I hate what it’s become. I hate that you can easily share information with the world. Even if that information is private. I can’t imagine what this next generation is going to say when they find out that their entire lives can easily be found in the vast abyss known as their parent’s Facebook profile. Or the fact that their mom and dad’s entire life can be recounted with a simple click.

I hate that people say “Well, it’s the only way my family can stay in contact with us now that we live away from them.”
I call Bullshit on that. You’re doing it to show off. Harsh I know, if you really wanted to keep your family in the loop, you’d open up a Snapfish account and send out picture files to a select group of family members. (or start a blog!) Because the problem with posting pictures on Facebook is that handy little share button. Now someone can take that sweet picture of Sally in the bathtub and share it with their entire friend list. Without your permission.
The minute you put something on the internet, it’s open season, friends. You are no longer in charge of the content or where it may end up.

Keep your family, especially your children, close to your heart.
Carefully pick and choose the things your share, and the people who share them with. Do you really know 100% of the people on your friend’s list? I guarantee you have a few people that have slipped through the cracks and you’d be surprised that you don’t even know them.
My biggest internet pet peeve?

People posting pictures without my permission.
This is an invasion of privacy, plain and simple. I’ve been known to ask people to take down pictures, because untagging yourself isn’t enough. It’s still there, people can still find it. Because, repeat with me: The Internet is Forever. 
I carefully pick and choose what I post on my blog for this very reason. I try very hard to keep myself out of the first few pages of a Google search. Lucky for me, there’s a much bigger blog out there that shares my first and last name!

And for the love of all that is holy, never never never never post a picture of someone’s child without their permission. I don’t care if that person shares intimate details with the world every day. Just don’t do it.



Texas Women Bloggers

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I always worry about the future kids of reality stars. Or any cast member from The Real World. Those people are freaking nuts. I would be mortified if mommy was on Real World whatever...

Emily Hornburg said...

I'm always really careful about posting pictures of the kids from church. We have a private Facebook group, that way we can put up pictures and such of our events. But if you aren't a member of the group you can't see the photos. It's not ideal, but MUCH better than a public page. Then when I post on my blog, I RARELY use photos of the youth and when I do I'm sure to 1) ask permission, 2) do a photo of them where it's far away, the back of the head, or it's kinda fuzzy 3) I just don't post them if I can avoid it, and most of the time I can.

Rachel said...

This is something many people don't remember--especially today's teenagers who put anything on the internet without thinking about it. That's why I refuse to "friend" my brother-in-law on FB, he's 14 and he has no idea the damage he's doing to his online reputation right now, and I will not encourage it. I only ever post pictures including my husband and myself unless someone asks me to post a picture of them. Honestly, I love FB a lot because I love keeping up on the news from my friends on the other side of the world. But I rarely write stuff on it myself. I just checked, my latest status update was in late May.