Have we all started living in glasshouses?

I start by asking myself this question, especially in light of the fact that I found myself transforming and becoming more of an extrovert, thanks to these new age social tools that allow me to put myself out there with the click of a button. I find myself sharing a lot more of me than I ever did before with a reach that’s capable of touching scores of people through the online medium. Several of the social media networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Orkut, Myspace, Flickr, Foursquare, YouTube, Hi5 used across the globe form the gateway for such avenues. The free and swift accessibility of these online tools has made it easy for an average Joe to tap into an audience of scores that was not previously possible.

With the omnipresence of social media, it also brings to the forefront the critical issue of transparency. Everything is shared, liked, voted, and forwarded these days! Pictures of your wedding, video journal of your Europe trip last week, footage of your baby’s first steps, declaration of your new job and title, an aerial view of your new house and your neighborhood..the list goes on!

The point I’m trying to make is, we are living in a day and age where our entire profile and lifestyle is available with the click of a button; a Google search or a Bing away. Far flung from the days where you needed a social security number to get detailed information about a person :)!

Today, you have multiple avenues to get to know a person without even meeting him or her physically. The virtual world is packed with all kinds of data and information. It’s easy to learn about a person’s likes/ dislikes, who are his friends? Where does she live? What did he eat last night? What are their holiday plans this Christmas? What are their kids’ names? What are his New Year goals?

As a global community I believe these social media tools have made our world smaller making our connections tighter. If you think about it, we are all connected to each other with perhaps six degrees of separation. However, on the flip side it comes with the threat of great misuse of personal information and photos. We all need to be responsible and draw our own lines when it comes to the question of how much is too much? Are we overindulging with perhaps sharing way too much of our lives online? What about those who like to share every aspect of their daily lives online with others? Tweeting or perhaps wall posting about when I woke up, what appointments I have for the day, how did my meeting go with that client, what do I feel like eating for lunch, where do I plan to meet my friends over dinner. Do you think we are revealing too much of our selves without deliberating on what the implications of that might be?

As much as we enjoy the privileges of these modern tools we all need to be responsible about the usage and exercise caution and more importantly use common sense! Adjust your privacy settings on each of these platforms. Do you want your personal information and photos to be visible to everybody or would you rather give access to only your friends? In the same token, each one of us need to use good judgment when it comes to revealing and sharing parts of our private life online. Agreed, this is not a foolproof method to protect your online identity but at least you are not opening the door wide to welcome complete strangers into your house. You are using some discretion and caution.

Another important point I would like you to think about is the image you project on the different social platforms.  Just the way you’d intend to ‘position’ a product or a service based on your target audience shouldn’t a similar principle apply to your ‘social audience’? Whether you are on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr or YouTube identify and recognize the purpose of that medium and segregate accordingly. As authentic and genuine you need to be across these platforms, make it a point to chalk out a line between these tools as they are meant to serve different purposes.

Remember you are the ‘same person’ but there is a subtle difference in the way you’d interact with your family, friends, co-workers, vendors, future employers or neighbors. Each of these circles may get to see a subtle shade of you, so why not use the same principle when it comes to interacting with the same folks online through these different social mediums! Wouldn’t you think?

Photos by fisserman and tanakawho