Monday, March 21, 2011

The Social Stalker


OK, we all know the term "cyber stalking," which we relate more to Facebook specifically. Grad student Chris Lied got into more detail on the issue. I have to say that most of the information that was given in his presentation was obvious, mostly with the numbers that state men are more likely to stalk women on social networks and the effects of this new form of stalking.

Of course, stalking online has been around as far back as the first chat rooms in the early-mid 90's. Facebook has made it easier for these "creepers" to stalk more openly. Lied's presentation did expose the increase of cyber stalking, and it did give some good advice on how to prevent it. The most significant way was how to save a web page by printing the page into the "Paint" application and saving it there, which is important if the stalking is very severe.

One thing I do disagree on is the gender numbers. I think women do stalk more than what was found in his research. I think the number is low because I believe men are embarrassed to admit being stalked by a woman, and are less prone to report it, due to their fear of losing masculinity. I can say that most of us have had one stalker in our lives when it comes to being online, especially on Facebook. The social networking sites have given us more access to people information, and it could be a negative for the way people interact with others. Sometimes we do more communicating through Facebook than we do in real life. Maybe sometimes we have to remember how to use our social skills which we have used for millions of years as humans, unlike our fingers that have done most of the talking for the last two decades.

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