Watch what you share on social media

Some of us may think of social media sites like Facebook as a small party of friends at home or, say, a semi-private gathering at a table in the library.  Certainly we may set privacy to mimic either sort of gathering.

Instead, Facebook may be an unimaginably large public square, where posting or commenting is tantamount to speaking with a bullhorn.  Of course not everyone will hear it or pay attention to it, but chances there are people who will.

Moreover, imagine you're in this public square at night, when you cannot see the people who may be lurking outside the lit area where you and your friends are gathering.

Suppose you actually have a good bearing on your situation and context, and avoid even having a bullhorn in your hand.  Then the question is, How well do you trust that small group of friends, with whom you're talking privately?

They may be well-meaning, quite trustworthy friends, so what gets shared among you stays among you.  But even such friends make mistakes, and slip, by sharing something from that private conversation with another friend in their circles.

Other friends may actually have malice in mind, and deliberately share something they're not meant to share.

So we end up angry with certain friends.  We get taken aback by non-friends who catch wind of what we say or do.  We end up regretting what we say or do.  

(image credit)

You see, Facebook can easily become the breeding ground for such a mess.  Not only does it have a business model that requires it to share our information, in some form and to some degree, with others (i.e., advertisers).  But also it promotes an aura of connectedness and engagement among hordes of people, which are the conduit for intended and unintended sharing.

Furthermore, the very best and very worst of our humanness don't just disappear as we shift from in-person to online socializing.  We want fine, meaningful and safe conversations, but may end up subject to activities gone terribly awry.

(image credit)

All of this said, here are the article and the research that prompted my thinking:  When Social Sharing Goes Wrong: Regretting The Facebook Post and “I regretted the minute I pressed share”:  A Qualitative Study of Regrets on Facebook.

I became active on Facebook four years ago, and steadily added LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter into the mix, then Google+ more recently.  Early on, I decided, and have kept to it, that my personal life is my personal life.  Observant or astute friends will note that I rarely, if ever, share any such thing.

I am so thankful that I am not wont to do or say anything regrettable anyway.

But that's just my rule.  What is yours?