Social Media May Be More Revealing Than You Think
An experiment by MIT involving social media has been almost as revealing as what others can learn about you from an online social media site. Many people sign on to the social media sites in order to reconnect with old friends, new friends, and family members but many may fail to understand just what a profile on sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter may reveal to those we know and those we don’t.
The MIT study concluded some such revealing facts including one’s ability to determine whether or not someone is gay. The researched showed that just by looking at the friends listed on someone’s profile, they could in fact predict their sexuality. Using a statistical software program against the actual knowledge of a person’s sexual preference, the MIT students were able to make predictions based on the friends listed on a profile. They concluded with the study that many people may be ‘outting’ their private information to the general public just by association.
While there is still controversy about the privacy concerns on any online site, there are people who still believe they are able to keep their private information private and remain in control of what they reveal. However, the MIT research study proved that to be not so true. Sexuality is not the only tidbit of personal information that can be deduced either. Just by casual observation of a person’s friends list, there is a good bet your age range, religion, and other information can be unknowingly revealed.
Posted in Social Media News. Tags: facebook, myspace, twitter
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