Status Updated, and Tracked

All forms of social media come with perks and costs. Sharing with your friends may mean sharing with their friends. Depending on your settings, more people than you know may be tracking your usage.

February 4, 2013

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Social media is not just a part of life, it’s a way of life. Communication and networking has integrated every part of life. You can scan, tag, check in, update, like, share, buy, sell, trade, play and yell whatever you want. The world is your schmorgashborg. While you’re logged on, odds are, someone somewhere is logging your information, tracking your every move.

status_updatesKeywords are just that, key. Google it. Search and find. Companies pay big bucks to know what you will buy, when you buy it and how to market it to you. Researchers are capturing all the data you’re sharing too. Based on when you log on to when you send an update, they can determine how far you’ve traveled and at what speed. They know when you’re texting and driving. Beware.

Some of the wealth in sharing is inherently good. Scientists recently gathered data to help predict the spread of influenza and Noro virus based on frequency and proximity of Twitter “tweets” that contained words like “sick,” “coughing” and “fever.” So while you may be interested in the private side of life, you might have more to offer in a larger sense.

The best part about this whole stream of data is that you control the flow. You can dam the river anytime you want. Your computer, iPad, cell phone and whatever else just came on the market has a feature you can modify, location services. Most apps ask you to choose to turn it “on” or “off” when you download it. So next time you want to “share” something with your bff, remember, you might be sharing it with a few more people.