Social Networking: A purposeful loss of privacy

Everyone today has mainly used a social networking site such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram before, but do we think about the consequences involved in the use of such sites. These consequences may be the last thing on your mind. The use of social networking sites runs the risk of exposing private information about yourself. Social networking may be helpful in reaching out to friends and family and it is also indeed harmful. We find ourselves defining our self worth with the number of friends or the number of likes you have. While we have an increase number of friends on these networking sites, we find ourselves exposing even more information for the world to see. Private information we may exposed are home address, e-mail address, school of attendance, photos, age, viewpoints, likes and interests. The exposure of sensitive information allows an increase of cyber criminals. Identity theft, malware, and harassment have been on the rise as social media networks continue to grow. There has also been cases where anonymous people would use a popular person photos to "catfish" others onto the page. The internet is a dangerous place and we should be careful of our private information.

-Jeffrey Li