Contradictory Concerns- Propensity of social world and Presentiment over privacy

Do you scan your friend list before posting anything on your fb account?

Do sometimes the privacy concerns bounce you back from posting anything on your account?

Do you consider all or few while posting anything?

Do certain issues heard about privacy invading of other users’ scare you from taking few actions?

If the answer to all above stated queries is affirmative, then where does the definition of social networking justify itself. A space where a user decides to be with his own conscious decision stops the same user to network him freely contradicts the very existence of social world. Various researchers have identified and stated that the decision to post and share anything over the social networks is highly influenced by our idea of perceived audience. Inability of segregating the audience in to different categories leads in creating an identical image of the audience for a user thereby influencing his decisions about sharing anything over the network. Moreover the variations in the privacy settings of the SNSs over the years have complicated the security concerns even more. It has regulated the social interaction to an extent that a user can customize about a single individual having access to a particular type of content over these sites.

At the initial level, the very set up of these social networking sites affects the definition of communities it has created over the network. For instance, Facebook has put every another user having an account with the site under the category of ‘Friend’. Friends in the Friend list created over fb includes various other sections also like ‘real friends’, ‘facebook friends’, parents, acquaintances, relatives, workmates, classmates, siblings and many more. So the decision about sharing data and information also is taken keeping in mind these various categories of audience thereby influence the behavior and conduct of sharing personal information over the social planet. Even information tweeted over the twitter passes on to various other networks through the application of hash tags. So the nature of its being flexible in terms of its access to large communities via internet has raised the concerns of privacy rather more.  I would think more times than a regular user while sharing any check in or a photograph or a personal experience and feeling if I  have a community of my colleagues as my ‘facebook friend’on my account.

To conclude with what, how and to whom personal information is shared over the social networks depends upon the perception of the audience a user has. Conceptualization of the audience in the mindset of the user influences their decision of sharing any sort of information over the social networking sites. So ideally it talks about how the interaction level and communication styles over the social networks is highly influenced by the idea of’ imagined audience’.