The Blurred Line between Public and Private Persona on Social Media

Introduction
There are blurring lines between “public” and “private” persons in the social media. Public persons are what people should know about a person, and in many cases, the information that does not get to embarrass anybody when known by the majority of the people. On the other hand, the private personal information is a thing that a person aims to keep secret, and do not want the general public to have knowledge about due to moral values in the society.
The Origins of Social Media
Social media came into existence when the internet became ingrained in the people daily lives. It shows that the social media is two decades old, but the extent of usage among the people have surpassed any other innovation ever been made. It remains to be the most common tool that influences, informs and controls most of life today. It is through social media that many people update one another on the trending news, share experiences and show their plan of actions (Kietzmann and Jan 244-8).
Many inventions have been made by various people previously, but there has never been any invention that injures into the personal privacy as in the case of social media. The use of social media takes different platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Other people also use social media availed through other platforms like Google Plus, WhatsApp, and many others. The most dangerous aspect of social media in as far as the personal privacy is concerned is that it stealthily creeps into a personal privacy without compulsion and enticing of the persona, but out of free will (Harris 51).

The Telling Use of Social Media
Many people find the reason to post on social media some of the photographs and thoughts that are best preserved for a confined audience. Unfortunately, they did not have the opportunity to set the audience to their posts. Whenever they share anything on social media, it is always public. This is the greatest concern about the rate at which people share information on social media and the augmented level of privacy that they would need to observe with their posts (Gross and Alessandro 82). The continued use of social media to share with friends and relatives, therefore, creates blurred lines between private personal information and publicly intended information.
The beauty of social media is to have as many followers as possible. Moreover, the beauty of the shared materials is to have as many views and reactions as possible. This means that social media interactions thrive on popularity. People have therefore put in place various initiatives that can give them the widest following and coverage. It is, however, unfortunate that the more following and coverage that social media posts may garner, the more exposure and vulnerable person becomes when using social media (Phillips 163). Normally, some factors and features of a personal life should remain a private affair, but the non-compulsory enticement to have the need to the social media posts, photos and videos remain core concerns to any moral society member.
People normally share many aspects of their personality on social media. The most common areas of sharing are the personal photographs, thoughts, and videos. As people share such information, they are made public, and the person fully loses control over their usage. This means that a malicious person can have the opportunity to download the photographs, videos, or other materials posted publicly on social media and use them for their personal gains (Boyd 127-30). This may even happen without the knowledge or consent of the original person who posted the materials on social media.
Initially, people used to keep secret the places of visit, what they plan to do and their experiences. At worst, they would share such personal information with only the people who and very close to them. However, with social media, a person can keep on posting materials like thoughts and the platform keep showing where the person is at the moment of making the post. This can be used by malicious people who plans to carry out a sinister action on the person as they can track and easily follow the person based on locations, experiences, planned actions, and emotions (Gross and Alessandro 83).
A person for instance who posts a message before leaving for work will have the social media platform shows where they live. The message that confirms they are leaving for work will help a criminal know where the person lives when the person leaves for work and possibly the mode of commuting the person deploys. When the person reaches where they work, they post what they have encountered their on the way, and at work. They keep updating the public of how the work is moving along and tells when and where they go for lunch. As they leave work going for an evening dinner, they place the message to the public on social media and shows the public the feeling they have during the activity. They even go ahead and post a picture of the food that they are taking during the occasion. These posts continue through the way back to their homes and the preparations for the evening and finish the day off by wishing the fans a good night. The process continues and repeats every other day even when the person is not working.
In such a case, Friedman wonders how the privacy of the individual is observed over the time. Friedman believes that personal privacy is no longer a matter of privacy anymore, but the line between personal privacy and the public information have been made blurred. He writes,
“The Internet blurs the line between “public” and “private” personas it appears a healthy evolution that business may be adopting a “balanced” approach to using the information that potential recruits put out on social media”.
Kietzmann and Jan 2011, asserted that the social media platforms like snap chat had been regarded as the most troublesome when it comes to child security online. Online stalkers and other people who would like to lure the unsuspecting teenagers by using the publicly availed materials through the social media posts (243). The concern created by the online sharing of information is thus a very major point of concern for many people.
The sharing capability that is very common on social media further complicates and diminishes the personal security and privacy in the same platform. The ironical part of the social media platform is that the most wanting materials get the widest view. Posting materials like nude photographs by mistake either on WhatsApp or Instagram mean that it will have the widest view. In many cases, the materials go viral with the full details of the person who initially posted them. In some case, the materials may contain the names of the person as well as the face of the person. This undermines the value of personal privacy, thus blurring the line between private and public data (Sprague 4).
When people post what is in their minds, they tend to show the whole world information that sometimes is not well thought out. People may post very basic things that remains to be too much telling about their personality and social values. Social media makes people behave like a person with schizophrenia who cannot fully understand the difference between what should be left to remain private and what should be shared with the general public.
Conclusion
The use of social media is very important to the modern society as people get a free tool to share and update one another on what is happening in their surroundings, their motives, feelings, and their plans. People who use the platform would like to get as many reactions as possible to the posts, and so they value the large following and fans. The larger the number of follows, the more popular on believes they are. In this context, people have been in search of the followers through various initiatives. Some of the methods that people use to get followers are to post very personal information about themselves on the social media platforms. They can at times post videos, photographs, and thoughts that lead to diminishing personal privacy in the society. This means that there is a blurred line between the private and public information to the social media users.

Works Cited
Boyd, Danah. “Why youth (heart) social network sites: The role of networked publics in teenage social life.” MacArthur Foundation series on digital learning–Youth, identity, and digital media volume (2007): pp. 119-142.
BIBLIOGRAPHY l 1033 Friedman, John. “You Are What You Tweet: How Social Media Define Our Professional Brands”. Huffingtonpost, 5 January 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-friedman/social-media-brands_b_2001505.html.
Harris, Michael John. The end of Absence: Reclaiming what we’ve lost in a world of constant connection. Penguin, 2014.
Kietzmann, Jan H., et al. “Social media? Get serious! Understanding the functional building blocks of social media.” Business Horizons 54.3 (2011): pp. 241-251.
Gross, Ralph, and Alessandro Acquisti. “Information revelation and privacy in online social networks.” Proceedings of the 2005 ACM Workshop on Privacy in the electronic society. ACM, 2005.
Phillips, Brenda, et al. Social vulnerability to disasters. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2010.
Sprague, Robert. “Invasion of the social networks: Blurring the line between personal life and the employment relationship.” U. Louisville L. Rev. 50 (2011): pp. 1-47.