Regrets, I’ve had a few, but then again, too few to mention.”
— Frank Sinatra from I Did it My Way
Sinatra may be the only one who counts his regrets “too few to mention.” And Rep. Anthony Weiner, the congressman who is just the latest public figure to post and regret, isn’t alone in his predicament.
A study from Retrevo.com, a consumer electronics review and shopping site, reveals that 35 percent of Americans have posted something online that they later regretted.
Some smartphone users may not be as clever as their devices are. Fifty-one percent of iPhone users admit posting TMI online. (That’s “too much information” for the uninitiated.) A few more of the study’s highlights:
l 54 per cent of respondents under 25 said they had posted something online about themselves that they regretted revealing.
l 32 per cent of those saying yes were over 25.
l In addition to iPhone users, Android and BlackBerry users are almost as remorseful. Forty-three per cent of Android owners owned up to posting personal info and 45 per cent of BlackBerry owners regret a post.
According to Retrevo.com, damage control isn’t the strong suit of many of those posters. More than 25 per cent said that a posting ruined a marriage or a relationship or caused problems at home or work.
“The information people post to sites like Twitter and Facebook can easily go on to have a life of its own,” said Jennifer Jacobson, director of public relations and social media for the site.
“You don’t always know who’s following you (on Twitter) and just about anyone can take a screenshot of your post, save it and share it with the world.”
With a smartphone, it’s most often the photo feature that gets posters in hot water — or the cold shoulder from friends and family.
It’s too easy to take a quick photo that seems hilarious at the time but that can come back to haunt you.
It might be in that next job interview, when the interviewer has checked out your Facebook page. It might be when you’re trying desperately to remember which friend you were avoiding and told just how busy you were at work that night.
Be like Old Blue Eyes: Have too few regrets to mention. Think before you post.
Critics of social media often complain that sites like Facebook cheapen human relationships.
People seem all too willing to share the most mundane (non-)events of their lives with people they barely know, while stifling interaction on the important aspects of their life that require face-to-face contact.
The rise of Facebook means we share a great deal of nothing, and little more, they say.
But even that may be too much, says one study.
Tweens and teens are often warned against sharing too much personal information online, but a new study suggests grown-ups aren’t much different than adolescents in protecting their privacy.
Facebook users were the focus of the work by a psychology professor and two PhD candidates at the University of Guelph, who compared the habits of a youthful group — ages nine to 18 — to a more seasoned population of non-students, ranging from 19 to 71.
“There’s this belief that somehow younger people, especially teenagers, are somewhat foolish when it comes to privacy and social media, and that as people get more mature, older, that they become more careful and more protective of their privacy,” Prof. Serge Desmarais said in an interview.
“As the paper revealed, teenagers and their parents or people who are somewhat older are certainly not that different when it comes to protecting their privacy.
“So younger people are not as foolish as we think, or parents are more foolish than we think — either way.”
The findings will be published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, and have already appeared online.
The researchers recruited people to participate in their online survey from among visitors to the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto.
The younger demographic comprised 288 Facebook users, including 112 boys, 171 girls and five participants who didn’t provide their gender. The older group consisted of 285 Facebook users, including 118 men, 165 women and two people who didn’t give their gender.
Responses showed that 35.4 per cent of the young people and 29 per cent of the adults were at least somewhat likely to disclose personal information on Facebook.
The researchers’ finding that young people reveal more is partly attributed to the fact that they spent significantly more time on Facebook each day.
On the flip side, 43 per cent of the young people and 59 per cent of the adults said they were “somewhat likely” to “very likely” to not share personal information.
Co-author Emily Christofides said the respondents’ general likelihood of disclosing information on Facebook was compared to their answers to 13 specific questions about the kinds of information they shared — for example, relationship status, religion and interests.
“We found that was highly correlated with how likely they said they were to disclose,” she said.
Christofides said the research team was surprised to find that adolescents were more aware of the consequences of disclosing information.
She said that if popularity was important to an individual, the person was more likely to share information.
“While we found no differences in the number of friends or the importance of popularity between adolescents and adults, teens were more likely to engage in behaviours that we have termed ‘friend collecting’ — behaviours such as adding people they do not like or do not know personally,” the authors wrote.
Christofides and fellow student Amy Muise said there can be negative consequences for relationships and employment when Facebook users disclose something that might not be seen in the best light.
“A good percentage of employers now say that they’re checking Facebook before they hire people,” Muise said. “You might not get a job and it might be because of something you had on Facebook, and they’re likely never going to tell you that.”
Previous research has indicated there can be feelings of jealousy or suspicions of infidelity if a romantic partner posts photos of someone unknown, she added.
“You should treat anything that you post on Facebook like you’re posting on the front page of a newspaper, so you want to be comfortable that you’d be OK with your employer seeing that, your family member seeing that, friends, children,” she advised.
“Once something’s posted online even if it’s deleted later, it’s never really gone and can be shared very quickly and easily with a lot of people.”
Facebook users should set their privacy settings to protect themselves, and also think carefully about the types of information they’re posting, she recommended.
With Canadian Press and Scripps Howard News service.