by Alexis McCutchan| editor-in-chief
Social media apps have been slowly taking away our privacy and it’s beginning to show. Apps such as Snapchat, Spotify and Instagram have programs that allow for private information to be shared without a user’s knowledge.
“Sad thing is that we are the ones that allow social media to invade our privacy. It becomes available to everybody”, said senior Andrea Melisa Rodriguez.
Instagram: Have you ever wondered how your mom knows when your on Instagram late at night? This can be viewed in direct messaging (DM’s) you can tell when someone is on Instagram and it will even go as far as to how long ago they were in minutes. How to resolve this problem is relatively simple, you can go under settings, then click on “notification” tab, it will then lead you to where you can switch it off, so the information will be private and no one will be able to see it.
Snapchat: There is a map on Snapchat, aka the “snap map”. You can see where your friend is home or out and about, then you can go hangout with them, which is cool except you’re not the only one to see their location, everyone who adds them can see where they are. So by having your location you are inviting everyone to see where you work, live and where you hang out. Snap map will even go as far as to tell you how long a person has been at that spot and send notifications when they have moved……..sounds a little stalkerish to me. To remove people from seeing your location you click on settings, scroll down to “who can”, click on “see my location” and select only me. Therefore your location will then be kept private information and not be available to everyone.
Spotify : Have you ever walked into a classroom and had someone comment on a song you are listening to? I have and it’s beyond weird. I don’t mind sharing my playlist and music, but when people start looking at what song I am listening to at that moment and trying to talk to me about it..um no thanks. I had no idea about that feature until someone brought it to my attention. Apparently when someone uses Spotify on a computer, who ever follows them can see what they are listening to at that moment. Music is an outlet, a private space between one earbud, your head, and your other earbud. No one else is included. I feel that Spotify allowing this on computers takes away a users privacy and even can go as far as making one feel self conscious about what they listen to. To fix this you can go into your profile and click on the “social” button scroll down and make it private. Then you can unclick the “publish activity” and it keeps what your listening to private and all your activity will be muted.
Social Media has started to invade people’s privacy. It’s important to be aware of these things and how you can turn them off.
“I think we will soon get to a peek point when it will be way too bad and until then we will start taking proper measures to reduce it’s bad influence”, said Rodriguez.
