We all are familiar with social media and how important it has come to be. It is no news of how vital to our daily life that this piece of innovation has come to be. Social media is a lot of things for different people, it can be a platform where people can find their voice and put it out to be heard. It can be a place where some just want to come and have a good time. It can just as well, be a place where people come to store moments of their lives for posterity. They do this through pictures and videos. After all, the internet never forgets and they will always be available there. One of the advantages of social media is the ease with which it connects us to people. With just a name, you can look for anyone at all online, and as long as they have an account under that name, you will be able to find them. And you can also take a look at their online portfolio and have an idea of what they are doing. But then, herein also lies one of the biggest disadvantages. Social media has made stalking all the more easy and harder to curb. With just a few keystrokes, you can have access to private information that will be displayed on public sites. This is especially for those who love to post everything about themselves on social media. Online stalking is really a thing, and most of them are not trolls or even insulting. They might be ghosts who would never miss any post you make. You might not notice them because they do not like or drop comments on your post, but they are there all the same. With something as basic as a selfie and a one-line caption, it is possible to deduce your location. After all, we have seen this happen all the time to major celebrities. Where they were either robbed or attacked after making posts online. But then, what does this tell us? Part of the thrill of social media is that we have the ability to make these posts. We can put them out there and people can admire us and tell us we look okay. It might seem vain, but that is just life for you. Everyone likes being told they look good. The only difference is that some chase that compliments more than others, and we see evidence of that in our digital life. So do we say that we should not post our pictures and videos because we don’t want the wrong set of eyes to see them? We can’t live like that, can we? Always in fear over everything, for how long will we be able to keep it up? Apart from chatting, one other thing that is enchanting about social media is the act of posting, as I have mentioned. And when that is taken away, I am afraid a major part of social media will be taken away as well. The only way to solve this is to create a balance. We can upload pictures and videos, but we can do it in ways that won’t expose our location to the public. One thing I have noticed some celebrities do, especially the ones where their houses are public knowledge, is when taking pictures or making videos for social media, they stay away from windows and doors. This is because windows and doors are entry and exit points, just with a short clip you can tell the positioning of a door or window and use it to plan an operation. So what they do instead, is they either use an open space as their background, or they use a wall. For some, it might just be to make a better video quality, but after seeing the number of people that have suffered attacks because of something like this, it is totally understandable. So, my dear friends, what am I saying in earnest? As usual, social media is free for all, you are free to do whatever you want as long as it does not disturb other users. But you also have to make sure that what you are doing does not disturb you either. We have to be careful about the kind of things we post online, and the kind of information we give out easily, leaving it there for all and sundry to have access. The truth is that we can never truly know who may stumble on them and who may have bad intentions toward us. This is where being intentional about our social media handles comes in handy. If we want to use our platform for business, then that way we would always know what to post. But if the only thing we are planning to put out is pictures of ourselves and information on private matters, then we would have to exercise great caution. Because you never can tell where the blowback might come from. Thank you for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below; I would love to know what you are thinking. Till we meet in the next post. Borderimage credit: @deimage.
Sora Shimazaki
Tima Miroshnichenko
Monstera
Keira Burton
@bruno-kema you briefed it very nicely but I still find the networking thing very risky and can be hacked any time so, in my opinion, we cannot protect ourselves if something is coming to find us or we should have that much knowledge to protect our data or social media accounts or else we are helpless in finding such people.
Very correct... it is risky and all. But that should not stop us right? We just have to exercise caution whenever we are making use of social media.
Thank you for reading.
Boss,this has been on my mind for long and I must say God bless you for bringing it out. Many people feel social media is a place of absolute freedom, one can post anything he wants which is true but doing it without wisdom can endanger our lives. We don't know who is behind us, as people always say.
I love that part you talk about snapping near doors and windows, it is very essential for us to avoid making that mistake, the door is only safe because of the lock behind it , once someone discovers how it's looks like forget it. You can be visited anytime.
I have seen people post pictures and caption it with their locations, which is very bad, in this out world that kidnappers are everywhere hmm!. One thing we fail to understand is that not everyone is happy with us. Some are just looking for the slightest opportunity to strike.
Thanks a lot for sharing this with us, I must confess I am so blessed and I have acquired more knowledge. 🥰
Hehe... I am glad you got value!
These mistakes, when we make them we do not even notice them. They are just normal things that we do, but then they can have major repercusions. We are the ones that have to force ourselves and be intentional about it all.
Thank you for reading.
Exactly sir. 🥰
You have spoken well dear. Even the scripture says that Wisdom is the principal thing. Just as you've said, we can't seize our social media life but we can be smart about it. A lot of people has exposed themselves to danger without even knowing through social media. Literally everything about them is listed there and they just don't know how risky it is. Indeed it's necessary to wise up.
Solid read, well-done.
Indeed, we need to be smart, or we would find people capitalizing on our mistakes and using them against us.
Thank you for reading.
You're welcome.