The Balance Between Openness and Privacy in the Digital Era

We live in a digital era where several activities and conversations are held, and one of the most common questions you tend to come across in the social space from this part of the world where I'm based is, Do you know who I'm?, and Who are you? These two questions represent one of the ordeals of our present world. It's hard to tell who's who in the virtual world from what they actually are in the physical world, and the difference we've come to see better both has raised important questions about privacy, self-perception, and the lengths we would go to protect our personal space.

  For me personally, I'm free to upload my photos and my information online since they're mostly visible to my friends who already know me in the physical world. However, even at that, I'm not the type of person who documents all of my progress, achievements, or milestones for the sake of showing off, getting congratulations, and the like, and I give it my little best to make everything going on in my personal life known to the general public.   Through the years, I've come to meet different sets of people online who are nonchalant with uploading information about themselves and their family to their social space, documenting every milestone such as their workplace, new purchase, children's school, family problems, their home address, and much more. Aside from that, I've also come across people on the social networks that I'm close to, and yet I know little or nothing about them in the physical world due to their level of privacy and protecting their information from the wrong hands.   But then, regardless of which part we fall into, I believe our identity in the physical world can easily be judged based on our lifestyle, work, family, physical appearance, status, and the like. But the same isn't the case when it comes to our virtual identity. Each individual can decide to portray a different lifestyle and display themselves in a totally different way from what they're doing physically.   And I can say this for a fact because I've got loads of friends I know and see almost everyone day, and yet what I see them display online makes me be like, No one can be trusted or judged by their online lifestyle, because in the end it could all be fabricated just to chase clout or feel important in society. I'm not entirely different from this set of people; although I won't say the way I showcase myself online is different from what I really am in person, there are still some differences.

Take, for instance, that I'm a very quiet individual in person and tend to love to be in my space, talk less, and go my way as I try to avoid anything that brings about unnecessary conversations between me and those around me, but on the social space, the reverse is the case, as I like to jump on different conversations and express myself and my opinion freely. In a nutshell, most of my friends call me an offline introvert and an online extrovert.      I think the backbone is due to the freedom social space gives; many people can decide to choose and do so in a different way entirely. Another is probably due to the earnings that come from getting much engagement; most people dive into different things only that on a normal day they wouldn't do in the physical world, all so they can milk from the wealth the social space holds, and that's not forgetting the fact that people believe no one knows them, so doing anything won't raise eyeballs that might affect them physically.   But then, despite all of these, the importance of privacy can never be overstated, both virtually and physically. Physically, it's even more important as it's physical, and one of the reasons is for our own personal safety. An individual who always uploads everything about his life, family, and workplace would be exposed to the general public. Such dangerous people, such as thieves, kidnappers, and the like, can get that information and use it to trace and harm such a person.   Another is the safety of your assets and property. Without privacy, everyone would have access to your information and could loot you at any time, and that's why it's essential to be conscious of the safety of our accounts, information, and passwords, not letting them get exposed to others because having access to them would make us lose our accounts, access, and valuable information hidden in them.

To defend my privacy, I try as much as possible to only expose a few pieces of information about me online, not really letting my online interaction go out of bond, and using strong passwords that's very hard for anyone to easily comprehend. Authentication is very advisable, so that even if, by chance, there's a bride one of defense, the other would intrude trespasses from accessing our privacy and information.

This is my entry for the day 16 of the #mayinleo prompt of the INLeo initiative, if you'd love to participate, you can read days about it in the announcement post.

Thanks so much for your time. Have a wonderful day ahead and stay blessed.

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