Family Privacy Practices: Claire


My family was always very cautious about what information was put online and what the privacy policy for the family was. I imagine much of that fear and tension was cultivated by the countless chatroom horror stories that dominated the airtime on the 6pm national news. I was never allowed to go on sites that host chatrooms that match you to talk to complete strangers by chat, webcam, or both, like Omegle for example. Honestly, I never had a problem with that rule as a child… those websites freaked me out too, so I was more than happy to stay away from them. Additionally, we were never to post anything super personal online; like address, full name, what school we went to, and even, depending on the website, what city we live in. Again, I think much of this fear stemmed from the abduction stories that are constantly in the news, and frankly, I don’t blame my parents for establishing these (totally reasonable) rules… the internet is forever, and it’s better to be safe than sorry. 
In terms of how porous or impermeable these family-wide disclosure rules were; I believe as I got older, my parents became less and less involved with my online activities and let me fend for myself …. But always with the understanding that I would respect the boundaries in place or face the consequences. If anything would have ever gone wrong, however, and I found myself in a situation I couldn’t handle, my family would of course have helped me get out of it, but I always knew that whatever I did online could have a consequence. 
These family practices have definitely influenced my approach to/opinion on online privacy and what information should be shared where, if ever. Even on my personal Facebook I have very limited personal information posted; I purposely decided to omit my phone number and email as a privacy precaution. Also, I chose to disable automatic geo-tagging on all of my posts because I didn’t like the thought of anybody on my friend list to know my exact location at all times. Where my position on personal privacy differs from my parents is; I chose to restrict access to my internet persona because of a desire to keep my private life just that… private, not out of fear of the boogeyman.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Believe Introductions are in Order : Claire

My name is Claire Renic and I’m a second year WGS/rhetoric student at the University of Winnipeg, with plans to continue my higher education in women’s studies, with a focus on sexology. Being born in the nineties means I am a child of the internet; my generation has grown up connected, and this sense of connection shows no sign of slowing down. My relationship with social media and screen is one of the longest term relationships I have to date. For as long as I can remember I’ve been interested in screen, which resulted in both parents implementing restrictions on the amount of “screen time” both my sister and I took in daily. In all honesty, I can probably count on one hand how many days those rules were abided by… but the battle over screen went on for years. When my sister and I first got cell phones, they had to be turned off and put downstairs for the night.... again, you can imagine how long that lasted.  Some of the earliest memories I have of sc...
Read more

What have we learned about blogging, Facebook, and Cambridge Analytica

Image
Concerns have been raised this past week by experts  about the amount of information being collected and dispersed by a few giant internet companies  after widespread reports  that U. K. - based Cambridge Analytica used data from more than 50 million Facebook accounts to influence the 2016 USA presidential election.   Folks are also starting to wonder how secure their personal information is on social media networks. News reports  claim that it increasingly depends on where people live and access the web on the planet. Keeping ones privacy online is no longer - and may never have been -  easy, if at all possible.  While there are articles that provide users with advice and guidelines on how to use the internet in ways that protect the personal privacy of users , many people still give away personal information about themselves and often about their children through their blogs and online posts.  At this time of being se...
Read more

How Caitlyn Jenner is like an emotionally reckless mommy blogger

Image
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKJjKkGzggJFXNl4bQwK3w6agDpGvqzpTGfXU4WD832GkcAKa2rCN0iuRQ6XUuFKXQknXLnbEBzQvd4SwOPrvphRWCeRRQS3M48GMB4rYP-oSD6bXUGqmlpJc9Ke-tsIDHtWB5ur-l8LuN/s1600/care+less.jpg Careless people are dangerous and immature.  Check Gatsby. The villains in this American tragedy are reckless with other people's emotions. The same is being said of Caitlyn Jenner of the publication of her The Secrets of My Life .  One reviewer calls her "emotionally careless with the women in her life" in "How Caitlyn Jenner Betrays Her Family in Her New Memoir The Secrets of My Life". There may be some lessons to be learned for mommy bloggers who want to talk about their families, especially when their children are moving into adulthood. How does the nature of a family blog change by the very definition of aging and maturing children within the family? Let's speculate a bit about possible areas related to family for bloggers to...
Read more