Everything was better in the past....

I remember back in the merry eighties.
When it was perfectly safe to be a kid - especially where I grew up.
When we wrote on a typewriter, most people wore mullets and BALL sweaters.
When Gro was prime minister and Brå broke his famous pole.

When I got hand written letters from pen pals in our letterbox and I actually had to walk to visit

When TV was synonymous with NRK, Vidar Lønn Arnesen played the 10 most popular songs in a Saturday radio show (Norwegian). It was “Forelska i lærer`n”, “Take on Me” and “Sunday People”. I proudly listened to cassettes of A-ha, Creation and Shatoo on my Sony Walkman and “La det svinge” by Bobbysocks was the hit of the decade.

Before PlayStation, before Nintendo WII, before X-box even before Nintendo DS. I didn´t owe a computer game at all, nor did I have video or DVD. No mobile phone, no computer, no Internet, no BLOG, no Skype. Not even Facebook

And still I survived! - Strange you might think?

But; I didn´t know of any ting else. I though it was supposed to be like that. Surly by time I got aquatint with Super Mario. At the comprehensive school I barely remember we could play games on the Commodore computer. I didn´t spend much time in the computer room.

My interests in computers, Internet and social media have grown by the years. Nowadays I hardly can imagine a life without it. I´m on Facebook daily, Skype’s with friends and family, blogs, places comments and asks questions on various websites.

I write about my self, my family, comments on my friend’s posts, criticizes and praises – gives and takes! But is this entirely safe? Who can see what I post online? Can I delete it? Can someone get hold of my posts and abuse them? Can I be sure that no unauthorized people can access information that uploads? Can anything of this be uses against me? Can people get hold of information of me and my family that I do not want?

When I think of these questions I get a little shaky.
When we share something on Facebook or other social media nothing is any longer a secret. Even if just a limited group can access my posts there is no way to control what this group can do with the post. Even the most strict privacy settings in Facebook can not guarantee privacy. Your posts can be reposted or used by your Facebook friends in ways you never wanted. Hey - that’s how social media is design to work.

The term “Friends” have become rather extended after the success of Facebook. My self, I got several hundreds of friends that I don’t spend time with. I´ve got old classmates, people I met at an occasional party, colleagues, fellow students, friends of friends…. Status updates, pictures, groups – do I want all those to se each of my status updates and picture uploads?

The entire neighbourhood doesn´t need to see the post about my nosy neighbours. My boss doesn’t necessarily appriciate that I have aplied for a new possition and I hope my husband doesn´t see the party pictues from the party this weekend. In additon my son have got so old that he and his buddys also have a Facebook Profile.

In a way, I have no controll when I´ve shared something online. I can´t be sure that only my friends reads my posts. I upload pictures to Facebook in order to let my friends see them. After some days I regrets. Surly I can delete the pictures from my profile. Most likely the picture is removed from the Facebook server as well, but we do not have any guaranty for that. The real trouble however is that any of my “friends” can have download the picture before I deleted it. They could have shared it with their friends. The Facebook user agreement have some clear guidelines for how to use this social media.

We do our best to keep Facebook safe, but we cannot guarantee it. We need your help to do that, which includes the following commitments:

1.         You will not send or otherwise post unauthorized commercial communications (such as spam) on Facebook.

2.         You will not collect users' content or information, or otherwise access Facebook, using automated means (such as harvesting bots, robots, spiders, or scrapers) without our permission

Be careful about what you posts online.

It is not only your friends that can access your information. Always think that the entire world can see your posts. If there is a problem that certain persons reads your posts; DON´T POST!

How to act on Facebook 
Watch this movie (Norwegian)