Privacy (along with chivalry) is dead

People constantly complain that chivalry is dead, but I think the real issue here is privacy.  The spread of gossip and lies has reached another level thanks to the piece of technology we turn to almost every second of the day: social media.

People constantly post status', wall posts, and pictures to Facebook.  People like to say their lives are on Facebook.  In a way, this is true.  People can see who you're friends with, what you did last weekend, and who you're talking to in a matter of seconds.  However, it's easy to get the wrong idea on Facebook, too.  Each individual wall post or status is just a tidbit of information that can easily be taken out of context.  All too often, this is where rumors and lies get started.


Twitter is even worse.  With only 140 characters, users are forced to abbreviate what they really mean, easily leading to misunderstandings or misuse of words.  Plus, it's becoming increasingly popular to "subtweet", which is Tweeting about a specific someone without actually mentioning their name.  People have also begun to use the tag #oomf, an abbreviation for "one of my followers".  Now, all their followers are trying to guess if that tweet is about them, and, if so, why.

Technology makes a lot of things easier, and gossip is just one of them.  "Facebook-stalking" or "creeping" is now an everyday term and I don't think any users can deny they've done it.  All too easily we can infer things about other peoples' lives and jump to false conclusions based on faulty assumptions we create.  Social media, like Facebook and Twitter, is great.  It's a convenient way to contact someone, a constant source of information, a great way to stay in touch with people, and above all, an easy way to fight boredom.

However, personal privacy has come to an all-time low.  Both the users who post every detail of their lives and the users who gossip and make up lies from what they've seen are at fault.  What it comes down to is an individual question of how much you value your own privacy and the potential results of revealing too much, or too little, information.