"Online, there's a fine line between searching and stalking". Reading and re-reading that title makes me wonder about our use of social media. The amount of information one can find about another is scary. Brenna Ehrlich and Andrea Bartz, producers of the blog and book “Stuff Hipsters Hate”, are very helpful in the world of digital communication. They have talked about how to deal with online stalkers and even answered user submitted questions about using the internet to find someone. Does using the internet to find someone make one a stalker? Ehrlich and Bartz answer the question!
Ehrlich and Bartz explain that it all depends on the context of how one uses the information. They explain that if one has common occurrences with the person then it is okay to pursue them. However, one has to be careful of how they track someone online. One example included Facebook. Searching for someone online and finding their Facebook is a common incident. They shared that it is okay to send the person a quick inbox message and friend request. From there, one has to wait for a response or acceptance of the request.
They share that the information found online is usually put out there by people who don’t mind being found. Men will probably be flattered by the experience and thrive off it. Everyone on Facebook has the ability to make their profile private. If they didn’t want to be found, their information would be locked up. Ehrlich and Bartz share that the same procedure should be used upon finding an email address. However, if one doesn’t find the email address easily, they should give up. One may be considered a stalker if they find an email address hidden within the pages of Google.
The article is very interesting. It shows that we need to be careful of what we put online and how we use the internet to interact with people. Using the internet to find somebody is totally acceptable, but obsessive searching may move someone into the stalker category. Mainly, this is just a friendly reminder to be careful of the information one puts out there. Too much may be detrimental, but too little may affect one as well. Tune into Ehrlich and Bartz! They are two funny ladies!
These ladies offer really good advice. I do appreciate Facebook's safety measure in regards to confirming a person as a friend or not. Everyone has received requests from people whom they do not know. Having this option really aids in the arena of keeping your information a little more secure. Just as parents warn their children to not give too much personal information online, we too need to heed this advice. I have often found it personally disturbing how easy it is to access information about people. Good advice and definitely something to be aware of as social media continues to become an integral part of our culture.
ReplyDeleteI think that if someone is going to post information on their Facebook wall then it is fair game. We should all monitor our own personal information. The whole point of Facebook is putting information online that we WANT people to see. We should think about this concept when we are posting. The fact of the matter is that I do not think that people really think when they post things online. I think many people are naive about what can really happen. Everyone should have the mindset whenever they post something online that the information is already in the hands of their worst enemy. In that case people are only going to put limited information on their profiles..
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