Privacy

A lot of what new media does is try to find out as much as they can of your personal information to they could make a profit through selling that information to advertisers. That is primarily how companies like Facebook make their money. Privacy and confidentiality is hard to police in this new world or media. How can you trust all of those confidentiality statements you see in most of these websites? They will most likely not sell them off to third parties but what is stopping them from monitoring your traffic patterns on their websites and selling you stuff that meets those patterns. Also, people need to be careful with how much information they are putting out on these social network websites. If you have your phone number, work information, school you are attending, etc., you are basically violating your own privacy because you are putting it our for the world to see. The confidentiality you may have looked for will be gone at that point. It is hard to keep your information safe. On the news recently, there were a number of famous people (even Michelle Obama) who had their finances, S.S. numbers and all types of personal information splattered on their website. This was insane but it seems like it can happen at any point if computers are the primary source of storing this information. This is the wave of the future and it gives us global access. Going back to paper files for everything will most likely never be an option for us again.

You also have to understand that when you post too much information online, you are opening it up for everyone to see. If you are looking for a job, employers/managers like myself will Google your name to see if there is anything crazy out there linked to you or try to see what your real character is by looking at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. -  pictures, comments, statuses, etc. This can come back to bite you in the long run and I will say from experience, I have passed on candidates from what I have seen online. What they say at an interview will sometimes not match up with what I find online and this can cause me to question one’s credibility. Be careful what image you display to the world. It can end things for you before they even start…