I value my privacy but not to the extent that I am super careful about my online presence, social media, online receipts, etc. I don’t want a random stranger to be able to find where I live, but ultimately, I do know that that is possible. I try to not share my address anywhere that is not secure and I don’t give away personal information on online platforms like Facebook or reddit. My social media accounts are all on private after I had an unfortunate event where somebody stole my identity (my instagram pictures) and made a fake OnlyFans to get people to give them their credit card information. Yep, not making this up! After that incident, I decided everything needed to go on private as I was uncomfortable with freaks like that being able to see my pictures.
There are lots of other ways people can get personal information on you. Exam proctoring online is a good example. I think that exam proctoring online is a little extreme. I think since it’s online it shouldn’t be proctored, that’s just ridiculous. I have never had to show a stranger my bedroom, but when I had zoom classes my teachers and classmates would see my living room. I didn’t think it was an invasion of privacy at the time and I still don’t, since you can pick your location.
I don’t think that digital technology takes away too much privacy. I think that people know to an extent what they are signing up for when they use the internet, and using digital platforms is a necessary way to navigate life. At this point, if you don’t have access to the internet you are at a social disadvantage in many ways. The pros definitely outweigh the cons for me.
Overall I think that digital privacy is pretty much nonexistent, and it’s something people should be aware of. However, I don’t think that this is necessarily something that should bother people. I think that the benefits of the internet outweigh the cost of privacy. For things like social media, I definitely recommend keeping your photos private. There are so many ways that can go wrong, as I showed in my example above.