Social media has brought about privacy problems that no one imagined were possible. With Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Foursquare you can virtually tell the online world where you are at all times and what you are doing. Whether it is through Facebook check-ins, tweeting about your location or checking in through Foursquare Location Based Services can either be a huge breech in privacy or a cool way to stay connected, depending on who you talk to.
Personally, I usually don’t mind the use of Location Based Services because i don’t actively use them. I never really check-in places because for me, i don’t really see the point and i don’t want everyone to know my location anyways. While i admit that it is convenient when you have an app and it asks if you want to allow them to see your location, it is easier to do certain things like get directions and find closet locations without having to type in your address all the time. However, i think there comes a point where it starts to get creepy. For example, my sister went to Elmhurst College, which is a relatively small school. There has been frequent incidents where her and her friends check-in places through Facebook and they find that a particular human shows up to find them there. To me, this is beyond creepy and unacceptable. I guess the services such as this are not necessary and so if you do not want this sort of incident to happen , then you can simply not participate. But it makes me wonder, where this issue will be in a few years? How much personal information will be available through social media channels and when is enough enough? Privacy is a passionate topic for my marketing ethics teacher and he constantly is reminding us that, “what civil rights and women’s rights were for the past, privacy will be for the future.”
kaitlynjean 