How much of ‘you’ are you willing to give (or have given) to the Internet?

As how most of us are guilty in permitting ourselves to every social networks available today, there’s got to be a point where we wonder, what if the information provided got to the wrong hands? What if some awesome-unemployed photoshop editors exploited our selfies?

Although several individuals prefer to be transparent online, there are still many Internet users that are in favor of appearing anonymous. Regardless of how annoyed we are to the habit of using k-pop celebrities or anime or any kind of emblems by some people on their facebook profiles, we must realize that they might just being cautious of the virtual world’s odds. Stolen identity is not a new problem in the new media ground. There are still huge majorities of people that choose to give only to certain authorized people, the access to their online profiles – simply because they care more about themselves rather than exposing unnecessary knowledge.

We have come to the stage where everything is possible to be used back against us. Emails, phone numbers, address, friends, hometown, and favorite restaurants – these details might just be the exact materials needed by anyone who has extra “interest” in you. However, this problem does not only caused by our openness, I must say. Often we are obligated to give them out in order to access certain applications or websites.

It is scary for the fact that the assurance of keeping our information protected is no longer effective. The Internet is indeed too wide for us to track all the information that we’ve passed. And as how the Internet has grown and outsmarted us humans, we are getting less capable in controlling the flow. We have become so comfortable and vulnerable, too, that we tend to bear every circumstance caused by the Internet. For instance, we still don’t bother to log out our emailtwitterinstagramfacebook accounts on our phone even though we have been hijacked several times by our friends – just because we don’t think smartphones work that way.

Looking back through all the years you have spent on the Internet, it is hard to deny the amazing medium that allows us to search for anything in the world. Despite the intensity, we would never consider to get rid of it. Internet is just too good to be neglected. We want to be part of it. Hence the photo sharing, the tweets, the videos and etc. No matter how dangerous the Internet is, it is extremely irresistible. Having a love-hate relationship with the Internet is just too fun for some, if not all. This endurance may just due to the ability of the fast-pace Internet to provide us the thing that we’re all often craving for – the attention.

Written by,
Shila Suhaimi

Source: http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/09/yes-internet-your-citizens-still-want-their-anonymity/