Three years ago, after applying to Penn, I remember the first time I heard about, “Pennster.” I was shocked that there was one place where all of the incoming freshmen could view each other’s sites and talk to one another. Now as a junior, there are many different programs, from MySpace to Facebook, and the many others that fall in between. Today’s readings discuss the positive and negative aspects of these popular social networking sites as in MySpace and Facebook.
In the article, “Will Success Spoil MySpace.com,” by James Verini, discussed the affects on MySpace, from Rupert Murdoch buying out its parent company. The goal of this article was to examine the users of MySpace, and to understand how users use MySpace.com for similar but personal reasons. I found it very interesting that Verini discovered that MySpace is an entrance of a large sexual community. Verini found very important information in regards to sexual communities. It is bothersome that the site allows anyone over the age of 14 to access the site. The internet is infamous for sexual predators lying to coax people in, but a sight that so many young people use is extremely disturbing. I understand the importance placed on the parents of children under the age of 18 using the internet, but I believe that this monitoring can only go so far. The internet opens an endless range of topics and discussions that just about anyone can access. Monitoring time spent on the internet is becoming more difficult as adolescents find new ways around their rules. The creators of MySpace did not intend for the site to become a watering hole for sexual predators, and parental control can only do so much. It is an alarming concern, especially for adolescents, who do not understand the power that the internet carries.
Regardless of how disturbing Verini’s article seemed to be; Mark’s article discusses the alarming use of data collecting programs to monitor social sites, such as MySpace. It is becoming increasingly important to be aware of profiles and pictures that are posted on any social networking site, as they have begun to blur the lines between public and private once again. The monitoring of such programs has encouraged users to carefully monitor their information, to prevent it from being used against them.
On the other side of this, Ellison et al. point out that location-based communities keep people from misrepresenting themselves, but this may also increase stalking. There seems to be a very fine line between honest information and too much information that may present other issues. Gross and Acquisti also discuss the requirements of social networking sites, which seem to encourage accurate representation. Many of these sites require a school email address, making it more difficult to the sites dishonestly. Information kept on these sites seems not to hurt most people, but even seemingly innocent information can be destructive in certain situations. In this article, Gross and Acquisti demonstrate how easy it is to obtain a social security number, which we believe to be a fool proof method of security. We are relatively comfortable giving out our social security number online and our location as college students create another false sense of security.
Questions
As the internet increased the total rate of identity theft? Why is it easy for students to have more then one account on facebook or MySpace? Will hackers be able to use social networking sites to hack into personal files on personal computers?