Online Privacy: Who Cares?

In the study of Young & Quan-Haase, a research combined with qualitative and quantitative measure was conducted to examine the privacy concerns of university students - the ones who are the most active in using SNS. The reflected outcome is the desire to protect their social privacy rather than their institutional privacy. It means that they care more about what people in their different social circles know and make sense of their personal information than how other institutions and organizations would make use of their information for different purposes. Even though they are more likely to modify their privacy settings on a frequent basis, most of their personal information such as birth dates, sexual orientation, occupations, etc. are all asked to be listed online.

It is noteworthy that these social network sites along with other online services are accessible for the general population for free while they make a large amount of money through advertising and providing information of users for third party firms and corporations for profits. This is mentioned in Miller (2011)’s “Everyone’s Watching” chapter in his book, thus posing the question of an increasingly surveilled society where not only the government but other kinds of institutions and organizations are also gaining surprising information about the general population.


In this light, the practice of maintain a somewhat shallow level of privacy seems to have more connection and overlap with the attempt of SNS users’ construction and protection of their social identities. This is coming from the suggestion or the real-life experience of certain Facebook users that privacy is only a concern once they or someone they know have experienced a negative consequence as a result of their disclosures and lax privacy setting, leading to their social identities being affected.

As members of a community, it is important for people to know that their online actions can have impact. Additionally, most people, especially young students, are pursuing future careers, and higher education is their launch pad. Social media posts can show up in search engine queries. Companies are no longer just looking at your resume. They want to know what you are doing (and saying) online too. Now, that’s more of the punitive side of things. Digital identity is about much more than just worrying about its effects on future employment or conduct violations. Students or people with a fluent grasp of social media can accelerate their learning, develop meaningful connections with peers, and grow their professional network. What we do online can affect our face-to-face interactions…and vice versa.

That is to say, institutional privacy seems to be a far-fetched concern to most of the people who are aware of its existence. Perhaps is not yet big enough of an immediate concern for people but it should not be neglected. Although the clear line between what information to be put online (and what not to) cannot be drawn, netizens should still be cautious and think twice about what they choose to disclose on the online realm.