Introduction
These days, many Facebook users are easy sharing their personal and intimate information on Facebook. These are the people who have low boundary permeability create trouble for them as there are many applications that can easily access their personal information.
When individuals feel the need to exercise a lower level of control over their personal information, they end up eliminating boundaries with high possibilities of permeability and reveal intimate information about themselves, in terms of depth and amount of intimacy, on social media sites such as Facebook. For example, individuals attempting to use an application on Facebook need to allow the application to access their personal information, their approval to such an action indicate their low boundary permeability. Simply put, low boundary permeability rules define the openness of individual’s collective boundary. Such rules control the breadth and depth of private information shared with others (Chennamaneni & Taneja, 2015, p. 3). To change the trend of decreasing boundary permeability, certain actions can be taken to inform and educate people and ensure their personal and intimate information in not divulged.
Decreasing the Trend
Education about Risk
Facebook users need to be informed about the disadvantages of having a low boundary permeability. Users should understand the risks associated with sharing their check-ins and family images by making them public, increases the chances of people tracking your whereabouts and downloading your children’s images and using for personal purposes (O’Neill, 2014). Education is an essential aspect of making sure people start developing high boundary permeability and protect themselves from individuals fishing for information. Education can be done through news media and spreading information on online popular blogs to ensure a majority of the Facebook users are able to understand the risks they face.
Inform about Alternatives
There are alternatives that can be chosen by users to protect their information and practice boundary permeability. Users should be informed that they can make changes such as making their messages, images, etc. only visible to friends. Also, users can be taught they can avoid spammers and avoid getting targeted by spammers who send several messages on their wall on a daily basis. Users should be informed that these alternatives are advantageous for them and necessary for their personal safety. These alternatives can make sure users, are protected and understand the need to have high boundary permeability on Facebook (Sieber, 2012).
Make it Cool
People should feel positive about having high boundary permeability and they should not feel it is a burden they would rather avoid. It should not be a forced necessity on users; rather boundary permeability should be seen as necessary for individuals. By making sure that users feel positive about the use of boundary permeability will change the opinion of many others to use high level of permeability for sharing personal and intimate details. When the majority of people using Facebook have positive feelings towards the use of high boundary permeability, it is possible that people start feeling protected while using social media sites such as Facebook and divulging their personal information and messages.
Conclusion
There has been a dramatic decrease in the levels of boundary permeability on Facebook, as many people are happily sharing their messages and images of loved ones without taking protective measures. This action needs to be changed as it is highly dangerous and invites risk to individuals and repute of Facebook. Users need to be educated about boundary permeability though use of news media and informed about the alternatives that can save them. Also, informing and educating will not catch on unless; it is made cool for the masses to have high boundary permeability.
References
Chennamaneni., A & Taneja., A. (2015). Communication Privacy Management and Self-Disclosure on Social Media - A Case of Facebook. Retrieved 10 February 2016 from, http://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1446&context=amcis2015
O’Neill., M. (18 July 2014). Just How Dangerous Is It To Share Your Information On Facebook?. Retrieved 10 February 2016 from, http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/just-dangerous-share-information-facebook-2/
Sieber., T. (10 October 2012). How To Hide Your Personal Information On Facebook. Retrieved 10 February 2016 from, http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/hide-your-personal-information-on-facebook/
