Do People Have a Distorted View of Privacy Now?

As these social networks have developed, I can't help but wonder if our generation has a warped view of privacy.  Social networks have allowed us to take all the intimate details of our lives & plaster them all over the internet for millions to see.  Of course, there are "privacy settings" that give you the choice to select who you want to see what.  On Facebook, you can choose to allow only friends to see pictures, statuses and more.  With Twitter, users are allowed to lock their tweets and force people to "request" to follow them.  However, I feel like even if you take precaution and lock your page off from the world, somebody can still see what you post.

I also feel like our generation has lost the ability to determine what is appropriate for the internet and what isn't.  In my parents' day, you didn't go broadcasting your drama all over the internet.  Many young people willingly post any problems or troubles into a status or tweet.  I'm not really sure if it's because we want to see how many people are interested in our lives, or if we truly just don't know better than to keep our private lives off the computer.

Either way, I feel like social networks have totally changed the way that we view privacy.  We see absolutely nothing wrong with posting our phone number on the computer, or telling the world that we're arguing with our parents.  This may seem like a purely negative result of social networking, but there is a bright side.  There have been many criminals arrested after posting facebook statuses or tweets telling their whereabouts or what they are guilty of.  Yeah, this may be a stupid thing to do, but it's actually more common than most people think.  Here's a few examples -- Facebook Leads To Criminal Capture ; Teenagers Vandalize First, Facebook Later

The Big Boom. . .of Twitter

If you go out and ask any college student, what social network is running the world right now, they would more than likely say Twitter.  Twitter was created in 2006 and was similar to Facebook.  The difference was that Twitter consisted of ONLY status updates that were no longer than 140 characters.  What made this network even more appealing is the fact that you could update your twitter status from ANYWHERE as long as you have a phone with text messaging.  You could also post pictures from your phone into your status and allow all the world to see.  For whatever reason, people were fascinated with the idea of telling their whereabouts at any point and time in the day.  Another factor that could help Twitter's popularity is the many celebrities that hopped on the trend, tweeting their fans and making themselves more easily accessible to the public.  While Facebook is still heavily used, I think it's safe to say that Twitter is gaining fast on its competition.  The most appealing thing about Twitter is its simplicity.  It's so easy to use, even though at first it seems confusing.  It seems as though these days, more people have given up texting because tweeting their friends usually gets their attention.  As a matter of fact, the next time you are in a college classroom (a boring one at that), look around and see how many students are on their cell phones.  I guarantee you that most of them, if not all, are on Twitter, tweeting their lives away.