Safety in a Digital Communication World 

LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, Indeed, Reddit— the list of social media platforms goes on and on. We have these platforms at our fingertips, communication with the touch of a keystroke, instant connection, constant networking. It is convenient to connect so easily for work purposes, fundraising, information gathering or even getting to know one another and dating, but have you ever stopped to ask yourself how secure these networks are? Have you ever thought about what information the world has at its fingertips about you?  

Let’s set the scene.  

You attend a conference. It is a space of sharing information, networking and discussing new ideas for your organization. Someone else joins in on your conversation and you assume they must be part of the conference. Numbers are exchanged, social medias shared. You all go your separate ways. You go back home, and you start posting your children’s soccer games, your work holiday party, or your newest addition to your home. Posting items that you are proud of, people you love.  

A few months go by and now this person you connected with at the conference messages you. At first, it is just a response to your story or an innocent comment on that house renovation. Then, they start to message privately about how beautiful your children are. Slowly, they start to pry into your private life more than work. One day they decide they want to meet up. You start getting a weird feeling about their willingness to travel so far to see you, so you start to pull back from communication. Now they start to message constantly and start asking why you’re ignoring them. The final message indicates their decision to come see you, regardless of communication and you find yourself wondering “how on earth would they know where I live?” 

Well, they know because you have posted your student school jersey, the front of your home, the company you work for. These nuggets of information may seem so innocent, but they can easily give away more information to strangers than you intended. You think “well I’m not writing my address down”, but you don’t need to. Modern technology allows you to not only share those photos of your personal life, but often finding a location through these apps is easy. The applications we use are constantly utilizing our information and location for growth, so what makes you think they aren’t sharing that information for even more growth? 

So how do we protect ourselves?  

To fully understand the information being shared, do a social media privacy check on yourself. See how another profile may find you and see you and put yourself in an outsider’s shoes.  

Make sure you’re updating your privacy settings often and re-checking them often, as the apps often change their terms. Additionally, turn off your geolocation. Your apps don’t need your location to work better. They will do everything you need without that feature on.  

Set your boundaries. Discuss with your friends how you feel about posts with you or your family in them. Let them know what is off limits or what is okay to post. Additionally, there are settings on tagged photos and posts, so be sure to update those as well so you can approve posts before they are shown to friends or to the public.  

Pause before you post. Before posting any content on your social media, think about how it may be available on the internet forever and how it may be perceived or what kind of personal information may be in it that you aren’t thinking twice about or may deem innocent. As mentioned before, posting your student in a soccer game may not seem like a big deal, but remember that you have just given the internet your location and hometown in a roundabout way, as well as potentially put your child at risk. As discussed, explain and define what privacy means to you to family members and friends. This is especially important with the younger generation, as they haven’t been in a world without social media and exposed information. They may not grasp what is considered “too much” information without help. 

Finally, always know how to report or block people and content. There should be easy ways to report inappropriate comment with the click of a button. Settings will allow you to block anyone who makes you feel uncomfortable. If the harassment goes off social media, know how to pull evidence of harassment from your history on your social media sites and get law enforcement involved, if necessary. 

There is no such thing as being too safe. It is also easy to trust someone you “just connected with on the internet” as it seems so innocent, but you never know someone’s intentions and sometimes you don’t even know that they are who they say they are. Keep your boundaries, remain on guard, and think before you post. The digital communication age is here and although it may be convenient, it can also be scary. Be sure to keep you and your loved ones safe as it becomes more invasive, manipulative and all-encompassing in our modern world.