Social media is likely how most of your active digital footprint content is generated, so it's worth looking at it in more detail.
Social media refers to online platforms and applications that let you create, share, and interact with content and connect with others. These platforms facilitate communication, networking, and collaboration among individuals, communities, and organisations. They can be fun and informative, but it's not all sweetness and light.
Social media platforms collect vast amounts of data, including personal information, browsing habits, location data, and interactions. It's very easy to share sensitive information without realising how extensively it is being collected! Remember, "if you're not paying for It, you're the product"
Data is used to show you more of what you might like in order to maximise your stay on the platform. Data can be shared with third parties, including advertisers, data brokers, and other external entities. This can lead to unwanted use of personal data and targeted advertising.
The data gathered can be quite sophisticated and might, based on your activity, include your political views, sexual orientation, religious beliefs and other matters which you may wish to keep private.
Many social media platforms (deliberately, some might say) have complicated privacy policies and setting that can be difficult to understand and manage effectively. Default privacy settings are often set to maximise data sharing rather than protect your privacy, requiring you to actively change these settings.
For instance, do you have an account on X (formerly Twitter)? Did you know that X has an AI chatbot (named Grok) that is trained on users' posts and conversations? Did you know that, until recently, the default setting is for you to allow your posts and conversations to be used by Grok? I bet you didn't know this! To check that you're not sharing:
Similarly, outside the EU, LinkedIn has, without asking, opted accounts into training generative AI models using personal data
Once you have posted a comment or replied to a post, you have no real control over who gets to see your post. What you choose to post online can change the way people think about you, positively or negatively, and in both social and professional capacities. Stop and think before posting! Ask yourself:
What you post can have negative consequences for you. For example, here are nine instances where people lost their jobs because of what they posted on social media
Being tagged in posts and photos by others can expose you to wider and unintended audiences. It's very easy for shared content to be spread far beyond the intended recipients.
Social media platforms are prime targets for cyberattacks. Data breaches can expose personal information, leading to identity theft, financial fraud, and other security issues. Personal data available on social media can be used by cybercriminals to craft convincing phishing scams and other malicious activities. People can be daft and post information that can be used against them.
Do you think posting a photo of your credit card to a social media platform is a good idea? Are there any other pieces of information you can think of that might not be a good idea to post?
Please Rob Me was an experimental site designed to draw attention to oversharing on Twitter by showing when you were "checked-in" somewhere and therefore not at home. Other, similar sites included We Know What You're Doing - which scraped and displayed data from Facebook (e.g., I'm hungover" "I hate my work and my boss" "I'm taking drugs") and I Can Stalk U which aimed to demonstrate how posting photographs on social media could be used to find out your location. None of these sites are active today, but the principle still remains - don't overshare on social media!
Geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification data to media such as photographs. This data usually consists of place names and latitude and longitude coordinates. Geotagging can help people find specific information that is related to a location. For instance, it lets people the location of the content of a given picture. Geotagging is popular on social media.
Geotags are automatically added to pictures of many smartphones, as geotagging is switched on by default. Uploading geotagged photos lets people rack someone's location and correlate it with other information. By looking at the location data, people can find out where you are, or where you aren't. Wouldn't it be handy for a burglar who knew your address to know that you weren't at home?
In Iraq in 2007, four US army helicopters at a US airbase were destroyed by Iraqi insurgents who used geotagged photographs posted to social media by US soldiers to find the helicopters' location. Geotagging has consequences!
Social media often leads to unhealthy comparisons with others, potentially straining relationships and reducing self-esteem and while social media can connect people, many interactions are often quite shallow with only superficial connections made. Social media use can contribute to feelings of anxiety, depression, loneliness, negative body image and feelings of inadequacy.
Because social media is constantly available, and the algorithms show you more and more of what you like, this can lead to addictive behaviours, where individuals spend excessive time on these platforms. Almost 50% of teenagers feel addicted to social media according to a 2024 study by researchers from the University of Cambridge. The researchers do state that people who say they feel addicted are not necessarily addicted, but at the same time "it's not a nice feeling to feel you don’t have agency over your own behaviour. It’s quite striking that so many people feel like that and it can’t it be that good.” according to Georgia Turner, one of the researchers.
Social media platforms are notorious for bullying and harassment, which can have severe emotional and psychological impacts on victims, particularly among teens and young adults.
Anyone can post anything on social media. Social media platforms are rife with misinformation, fake news, and conspiracy theories, which can have serious societal implications, such as influencing elections or public health decisions.
Social media algorithms often show users content that lines up with their existing beliefs and prejudices, leading to echo chambers that reinforce biases and limit exposure to more diverse perspectives (though it could be argued that the design of social media platforms encourage neither debate nor civility)
It might be useful for you to look at the privacy policies of the social media platforms that you use, just to see what's going on behind the scenes. Below are links to the safety pages and privacy and cookie policies of five social media platforms. Click below the icon to see the appropriate policy
One way to reduce your digital footprint is to make your accounts private, so instead of everyone being able to see your posts, only your friends/followers/connections can see what you're doing. It's fairly straightforward to make your accounts private:
In 'Settings and Privacy' go to 'Privacy and Safety'. You can:
In 'Settings & Privacy', go to 'Privacy Checkup'. You can review:
In 'Settings', go to 'Privacy'. Here, you can:
In 'Settings and Privacy', go to 'Privacy' and turn on 'Private Account'
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