From CNN comes yet another story about people who disclose too much information on their blogs and social network websites:
On a Facebook group that celebrates young women getting drunk, there’s no such thing as going too far.
One young woman dances on top of a bar. Another sits on the toilet drinking a beer. Several vomit. One appears with a bruised and bandaged face (“I just got drunk and fell out of a car,” she writes.). In another photo, two women urinate into a waterfall.
What you won’t find on this page — called “Thirty Reasons Girls Should Call it a Night” — is humiliation and embarrassment. For the most part, the women post the photos themselves, seemingly with pride. This makes many adults — teachers, counselors, parents — worry that students aren’t thinking through the consequences of showing themselves drunk to the world.
Many photos on the site are accompanied by full names and the colleges the women attend, apparently without much concern that parents, or potential employers, will take a look.
Will having embarrassing information on the Internet affect people’s employment prospects in the future? Or will it all just grow passé? Are we witnessing a generational shift, where people will just get used to being more exposed than ever before? Will people be less harsh in judging others, as everybody will have their drunk naked photos and other private information online? Or will there be consequences and regrets? Only time will tell, but I find it to be an interesting issue for cultural speculation.
Originally Posted at Concurring Opinions
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This post was authored by Professor Daniel J. Solove, who through TeachPrivacy develops computer-based privacy training, data security training, HIPAA training, and many other forms of awareness training on privacy and security topics. Professor Solove also posts at his blog at LinkedIn. His blog has more than 1 million followers.
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