Tuesday 13th October Breeze Room Chat

Tuesday 13th October Breeze Room Chat

In tonights's chat several topics were covered in regards to the first reader and the idea of Web 2.0. We talked about the tasks and how we were getting on with everything, it was really comforting to just chat to people on the course and as I have mentioned in other blogs it's good to feel like we are creating a virtual classroom.

A topic we discussed in this chat that I think we all found useful was the idea of our 'social media footprint'.  For example, I had a myspace page from the age of about 15, that's ten years ago.  I have ten years worth of data on many Web 2.0 sites that are easily accessed by anyone!  I was astonished at this thought; not to mention a little bit troubled. So I went ahead and googled my own name to see what details were there for the whole world to see.  I have a stage name so I tried that first. Luckily, I was pleasantly surprised.  I found all my head-shots, show videos from Youtube and my Facebook page which I am extremely careful with! So all in all, it wasn't bad.  I was pleased with the material that was there.  I will, however, be removing my old head-shots!

Then I went on to google my full legal name.  The thing that struck me first was the amount of private information that appeared.  On one website I found my name with my home (parents) address.  Postcode included! The website then requested that I sign in to access any further information including what they called a 'background check'.  After being on this website a little longer I saw that it stated it's information was taken from the electoral register.  So is this a good thing or not? At first I will admit I was a little shocked and surprised that it was so easy to find out where I lived. It does seem like a breach of privacy, security too.  It is very easy to link an address to my name. But then I had to think, how many times have I given out my address to various organisations? Had I even thought about it on that level before? Before easy access to the internet many people had their address's and phone numbers in phone directories given out across the country. So why did I react so defensively?  I think it purely is because no one physically asked for permission.  Which made me think, when we give out personal information such as address and phone numbers, how many people are going to have access to it?

Information is so readily available now, especially since the development of Web2.0, i had not stopped to think that it would include my information.  Personally, I would never choose to put my address on any social media site.  It is disconcerting to think that in this case, I didn't have a choice.