Cyber Crimes

I have heard it said that "procrastination is the thief of time" but I want to now suggest that procrastination has an accomplice. And like Bonnie and Clyde or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, these robbers get away with more than just time.  How about the theft of genuine friendships, one's sense of self or discretion/caution?  The other half of this pair of thieves is responsible.  I'm pointing my finger at social networking sites (SNS).

Perhaps the biggest irony of social networking is its erosion of genuine friendships.  It's funny (the kind you don't really laugh at) people "friend" you on some of these sites and then walk by you without so much as a smile or greeting on the street - can somebody say "UNFRIEND!"  To what end are these friendships forged?

How can SNS be responsible for the theft of self?  What does it mean to have such a sense? Is it perhaps an awareness and appreciation of who one is?  Although our environs and experiences contribute to who we are, we cannot allow social media to dictate the values we have of ourselves.  Besides the fact that people often use photo editing software before they post their pictures, people are sometimes not exactly forthright in some of the stuff they say.  To then envy, idolize and then ape someone because their SNS lives seem to reflect everything ours do not, is not a healthy mode of development.  Certainly there's nothing wrong with emulating positive characteristics; but trying to be John Brown or Mary Jane just because we think it will allow us to become the centre of everyone's attention and even envy, definitely exhibits the absence of a sense of self.  

Along with a seeming erosion of genuine friendships and loss of one's knowledge of self, is the toss of caution/discretion to the wind. Where's the How to Use manual for these things?  Some of us post anything on our social network page.  Unaware, we have let all and sundry into our lives.  People make posts of their meals, their outings, their relationships, their moods, their likes and dislikes, their religious views... Have I left anything out?  I know I'm guilty of this to a very large extent.  If I stub my toe I post "ouch".  Is there something wrong with such openness?  It is through social networking that I have reunited with friends half the world away.  I get to share even a small part of their lives through the pictures and status updates they post.  But despite this wonderful benefit, should caution be put into the recycle bin?  Some of us had better hit "undo" for though the information posted in this virtual world is to be accessed via a key pad is it really so far from the world in which we breathe?  Let's think about it, if my phone number, information regarding where I was ten minutes ago and am headed now is accessible to those who view my page (and I sometimes accept random friend requests from people I don't know) is the non-virtual me safe? 

The success of a thief hinges on his ability to catch one unaware.  After all if the owner of the house knows what time the thief is going to break in then...  Very few people see any ill in social networking.  We laugh out loud at the ones deemed extremists who think SNS is the unholy Mark of the Beast.  Albeit their take might be an example I use to teach hyperbole to my 8th graders, but then again how far off base are they?

Hmmm...