Author Warns Of The Dangers Of Sharing Too Much On Social Media
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Jon Ronson, the author of So You've Been Publicly Shamed, warned against the dangers of sharing private information and being too open about our lives online.
Ronson, during an interview with Chris Stigall on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, said he is particularly concerned about younger people's online activity.
"We've created was this egalitarian world, this utopian world where everybody could live their lives in public and everything would be better because without secrets everything would be better. That was the utopian world that the young people have decided to create for themselves...The problem is that, suddenly, a lot of these people find it's too late. Oh my God, I've said the wrong thing. I made a joke that came out badly and now, in this utopian world, I am the evil person. I think young people don't care about privacy in the way that our generation did."
He directed a lot of his ire at Twitter and the damage done to many people's reputations based on things they've written there.
"On Twitter, we put all our private information out there for the whole world to see and then it gets us. We are the ones offering this information but what we don't realize is that this information that we offer, because we just want to create this nice new world where people are open with each other and people are admitting secrets, is that other people out there are using these secrets to define us and get us and ruin us."
Ronson stated that being open about who we are has its benefits, but people have to be careful about what and who they share with.
"In many ways, being unashamed is great. Think about how shame ruins us and our secrets effect us. So, in many ways, being unashamed is a really positive thing, I think. But, the problem is that social media is not...a utopian place. It's a place with snakes, where people's openness is being exploited."
