What do I use social networking for?
Finding people. It’s actually one of my more interesting hobbies. I just make an acquaintance with a person, and learn three facts about their: Their first and last name, and the area that they live in. Talk to them more, find out what schools they attended — where they may go to church.
I’m gonna get you.
MySpace is one of the best websites when it comes to really marking people down, you can narrow down people to many different aspects: The schools they attended, their religion, gender (of course), whether they smoke, ethnicity, “body type”, children… even height.
So What?
“So what?”, you say?
Seems I know where you get your coffee every day around 3PM. Also seems like I know where you hang out all the time, juding by your photos, and what people you are most often with. I know what your new car looks like, where you work, and where to find you about 80% of the time.
Employer’s Advantage
It’s like a background check. What jobs have they had in the past? Are their friends talking about criminal activity? Did they make a little post describing how they got a traffic ticket, and how much they hate the police, and how it “just sucks that those mother [truckers] are out to get you”?
What’s amazing, especially when it comes to teenagers, is how many people get themselves in trouble for bragging about something [stupid] they did. They want people to know, and they put it out in the public. Even more, teenagers that add sports coaches, teachers, and relatives are blindly giving these people direct insight into their life.
The perfect example of this:
In the month of January, a certain person in a certain town which I may certainly live in said something about a certain incident involving a certain drug being done at a certain place, at a certain time, on a social networking website. Somehow (my word pattern is important here), a certain educator stumbled upon a certain entry on this certain person’s page, or wall, or comment box, or whatever it may be. Obligated to report it, it caused a bit of a snafu and increased gossip and judging in the community.
It’s not just MySpace.
I titled this article “Social Networking: A Stalkers Tool” for a reason. This applies to Facebook, Twitter, MyYearBook, BookFace, SpaceMy, KnowEveryLittleThingAboutMe, and whatever else they can come up with. Even forums, and comment fields on blog systems and even YouTube videos result in these types of concerns with privacy. I’m not your worst enemy, the creepy guy that looks at you while you’re looking away is, and what’s worse: He has just as much access to this information as you or I do.
An even more key enemy:
Marketing. Especially with FaceBook, the information that you supply often gets sold to statistical data companies and often create ads targeted directly towards you. Social Networking media make a lot of money off knowing you. FaceBook had a very smart move in this direction: They got a whole bunch of users relying on their website, and made sure that people became familiar with them. Then, they changed their privacy policy to allow them to sell your information, as raw statistics.
So what do they do with all of this data?
Develop it, and sell it to ad companies. It’s hard to find good details about what and how they sell this kind of information, since most websites that use social networking to keep their users “in touch” with them don’t want you to fear using these websites!
One example, however, might be: Find out how many conservative women of an 18-34 year old age group attend a certain college, or what current Internet-Savvy age groups are smoking and where is drinking especially heavy. Ads can then be tailored to this kind of information.
You, and your friends, and your photos, and your videos belong to these companies that you upload your information to.
And now: The one major marketing tool we use on our website:
What did you think of this article? Do you have a story to share, an employer who “found out” about something on social networking, a breakup, or just a whole freakout by people who interpreted something wrong? Please use the comment form below to tell us about it!
How is this marketing? We know what pages users open, but we don’t know users are listening. Comments get you interacting, not only that, but you can subscribe to comments which get you coming back to our website… then, you see the “related posts” links start to fill up and find something interesting, and you click it! We got you to look at another page.
