Referring to Jurgensen & Ray (2012), how are digital technologies affecting (in positive and/or negative ways) users’ privacy?

A blog post, by Nicole Clark-University of Canberra, Australia

Privacy is the state that one is observed by another. Jurgensen & Rey (2012), believe privacy is a complex dialectic between revealing and concealing personal information.  The degree, to which an individual reveals information in a public and private context, is linked to the notion of self-presentation and how that individual wishes to be perceived from an outside perspective. Jurgensen and Rey (2012), attain, privacy is not mutually exclusive- that is, a private matter not discussed in some contexts does not inherently mean the matter is secret. For what is secret to one has a private flexibility to another. In the digital technological world, privacy is considered temporal in nature, where the line that is said to be drawn between obscene and scene is blurred (Jurgensen and Rey, 2012).  Digital technology provides individuals with the tools to create meaningful social connections; it assists in unique communication processes and allows for management of individual socially observed performances (O’Keeffe et al. 2011).

In the digital social world, through social media disclosure is adjusted by the user; according to the level of disclosure a user wishes to display to the outside world. Social media such as Facebook and Twitter, provide individuals with the choice to decide which information they will keep public, which information they will reveal to certain individuals and which information will be kept secret (above). For instance, a social media user might choose to display photos of themselves that only their closest friends will see but wish to conceal this from the public eye. Jones and Soltren (2005), attain individuals have the choice to manage the level of information revealed to the public eye- through control of their privacy settings- for the intent to keep aspects of themselves secret which is likely implicit of a low self-presentation ( Jurgensen and Rey, 2012).

Through low self- presentation, Gleman (2009) attains, is likely how and where the line can become blurred and information that is deliberately kept private can be altered by outside stimuli and through no fault of the users own, private information can be unintentionally revealed.

Jurgensen and Rey (2012) consider the process of reveal and conceal in the digital world to be one of constant change, however withholding from disclosure can allow for cracks in the disclosure core.  Annie- Jin, (2013) states, with the privacy of users, the social media Disclosure Onion where information is viewed by the public-will begin to unfold in an unintentional manner, allowing for the line between public and private to become blurred. 

For example, a user who does not wish to display photographs to the public, has a photo taken of themselves with their friends- as the friend doesn’t have the same self-presentation intent, Facebook matches a name to a face and  reveals the photograph to the public through the public settings of their friends profile (above).  Zheleva and Getoor (2009) explain, this is attributed to a third party information leak, where information is influenced by outside stimuli and despite a private profile, friendships and affiliations leak surprisingly large amounts of information that are unintentionally revealed.

In conclusion: digital technology, influences the degree to which information is both concealed and revealed and there are varying complexities involved in the concealment process- as outside stimuli can alter a users’ privacy. However, in social media the self-presentation of users, influences the observable information revealed and users with a low self-presentation rather than a high are less likely to experience leakage from third party sources. That is, users likely considered to have a low self- presentation, inadvertently cause the line between obscene and scene to become blurred and the user becomes more susceptible to outside stimuli. Therefore, this negatively alters the intended privacy of a user.   

Gelman, L. (2009). Privacy, free speech, and'blurry-edged'social networks.Boston College Law Review, 50(5).

Jones, H., & Soltren, J. H. (2005). Facebook: Threats to privacy.Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 

Jurgenson, N., & Rey, P.J.  2013. The Fan Dance: How Privacy Thrives in an Age of Hyper-Publicity.  In Unlike Us Reader: Social Media Monopolies and their Alternatives. Lovink, G. and Ratsch, M. (eds.). Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures. 62-75.

O'Keeffe, Gwenn Schurgin, and Kathleen Clarke-Pearson. "The impact of social media on children, adolescents, and families." Pediatrics 127.4 (2011): 800-804.

Zheleva, E., & Getoor, L. (2009, April). To join or not to join: the illusion of privacy in social networks with mixed public and private user profiles. InProceedings of the 18th international conference on World wide web (pp. 531-540). ACM.