Breeze Room Chat October 13th

In this chat we discussed several topics that were linked to Web 2.0. It was helpful to see how far people were getting on and to talk with each other about potential ideas we may have and how we could develop them.

One topic we discussed was our inventory of where we were social-media wise and what Web 2.0 profiles we had. Were you one of those typical year 7s with the cringey Bebo and MySpace accounts that we you can't even bear to read? I feel luckily not to be one! Most people are surprised when I tell them I never had a Bebo or a myspace account. If I wanted to communicate with my friends I would simply use MSN messenger.

I Googled myself and was not surprised by what I saw; links to my Facebook page and all things dance related such as Chrysalis London, Tring Park and performances I had participated in at school. This is because in high school, we were given the task of Googling ourselves after questioned about our privacy settings on our online accounts. I was shocked at what I saw. You could see my address, my phone number and many comments I had left under friend's posts. Without even knowing or meeting me you would have been able to use all my personal details to create another online persona that I would know nothing about. This has happened to many people I know, where they have discovered someone has created a complete profile of them without their knowledge that has included personal information and photos such as their baby and holiday pictures, all due to their privacy settings not being as private as they should! Kind of creepy...

Another thing that disturbed me were the pictures that appeared from the search engine. Some were of me and friends on holiday in bikinis and other pictures I definitely did not want complete strangers to be seeing! I set my Facebook to private very soon after this. I think what surprised me the most wasn't the fact that I hadn't given my permission for my information to be as public as it was (which angered me), but the fact that the content of my personal information I was putting up never crossed my mind as well as how easily it could be accessed.

Since the development of Web 2.0, information can be searched and accessed in less than a few seconds, which is both impressive and slightly alarming. Personally I wouldn't put certain details such as my address or phone number online even with a private profile. I feel these days people are more aware of this than they were years ago, which is a good thing, but as Web 2.0 develops, so are new ways of accessing the information most people would rather keep private.