My.Face.Book

Privacy is a major issue among college students. It is easy to spot that a majority of facebook users usually have their profiles set to private unless you happen to friend them.  But others think that privacy should be opened up and monitored strictly for seeking out potential predators and lawbreakers. I think a program like this should take effect only under the condition of setting a proper age limit to free teens and kids from government spying.

When I think about how our privacy is protected, I think it is done rather well and not so well. I did a small study of myself and 10 other facebook users and found some interesting statistics.

 I was good friends with each of the 10 and understood that whatever information that was placed on their profiles were valid to an extent but there were different levels of descriptiveness decided by a 1 – 4 scale, 1 being the lowest and 4 being he highest. All 11 of us were rather descriptive in some way, especially with the factor of photo galleries.

I  found in my study that there were a mix of types of pictures, but primarily group pictures would outweigh the individual pictures by a 3:1 ratio. About 95% of the pictures within each subject was considered “fun”. The photos were important because they are more valid evidence of the person than volunteered information. I was considered safe for having about 30 photos, the least amount compared to Justin and Laura who both maintained 433 photos. The average for all 11 of us was about 201 photos.

Amount of friends were also calculated and that gave Jason and myself the exact least amount of 130 friends while Greg took the top spot with 468 friends. The average for amount of friends for all 11 subjects was 262 friends.

When deciding who is individually the most at risk of privacy infringement we could say Justin is the prime candidate due to the fact he maintains a “4” rating on his information description, maintains over 433 photos and over 425 friends.  2nd place would have to go to Laura who maintains a “4” rating, 433 photos, and 299 friends. 3rd place is at a tie with Greg and Alleigh who maintain a rating under “3” yet still have over 200 photos and over 400 friends.

    In a way you must wonder is anyone really worried about privacy or is it about popularity? A chance to show the world you are a somebody among social networks. I would love to look at the backgrounds (i.e. high school history) of these facebook users but I think those who have many friends and photos are on a quest for social dominance in an alternative sense. This alternative sense is much related to those who play MMORPG’s where there is an alternate personality to maintain. Where if you receive a comment from one of these “prestigious” members you could feel graced. Understand I am talking out of a pure theoretical sense, but why is it that people are addicted to these social outlets? I believe that members of society want to broadcast themselves, however creatively possible, at least those who see the social pioneering potential of sites like facebook.

Subject    Information (1 – 4)    Photos    Friends
myself                    3                    30          130
eric                         3                 139           179
alleigh                    1                 250           422
berker                    2                 244           238
thomas                  4                   77           143
jason                     1                   44           130
laura                     4                  433           299
kevin                     1                 249            243
greg                      2                 209            468
marcus                 3                 105            212
justin                    4                  433            425
Total                                       2213          2889
            
Least                                 Myself    Myself & Jason
Most                                    justin & Laura    Greg
Average    2.545454545    201.1818182    262.6363636