The Internet is a powerful tool that has revolutionized virtually every aspect of our lives, including how we socialize, creating the so called virtual communities through the social networks.

Nowadays more and more people discover these networks and acquire their personal profile. This popularity maybe derives from lack of communication and the loneliness that lead us to share certain things with other people. I think that the key ingredient to the success of these social networks is simply the alienation of the past decades, people don’t even know their neighbours but they seem ready to share all kind of information with someone holding the same beliefs or common interests even if he/she is in the other side of the world.

This new trend is far from safe especially as far as it concerns to younger people who sometimes driven from the enthusiasm of meeting new people they don’t fully realise the danger of sharing certain information with people that might not be who they tell they are.

My personal opinion is that parents should learn about their children activities online not by demanding but by asking them in a way that it could gain their trust .They should also express their concerns and advices in a positive manner so that they won’t oppose to them.

When it comes to adults it’s pretty much obvious what factors to consider and understanding the implications of the decisions they’re making. To sum up with aall people subscribed to these networks should be fully aware not only for the benefits but for the feedbacks as well and the owners of these pages should create safer privacy settings.

As a teenager I used to play lots of online games but I would always hide my true identity which in later life came as a habit in every communication tool I was using. I was trying to protect my privacy. Throughout that period I met a lot of people, some were considered ‘friends’, some were provocative with their behaviours, others would deliberately hurt you. Indeed this side of the Internet can be scary.

There’s no mistaking that if a troubled or introverted teenager encounters such people which can pose a potential threat then his emotional world is at sake. In fact there are many examples of young teenagers who put their lives in danger because they had either trusted people when they shouldn’t have or lost confidence in who they were or what they were doing.

Since then I have realised that it is not possible to truly find a friend in the internet, even if I have many friends who are now in a relationship or friendship with people they’ve met on the internet. In order to accomplish this I believe it is important to have strong values, be confident and lucky. For me however, the internet is only a place where I talk to people that I have already met and know them well and believe I can share information with.

It is not easy to distinguish the boundaries between privacy and safety. It is also quite common to trust people with personal information or even worse to twist personal information in order to show that you are older for example. This may be a powerful tool to protect your privacy but if it is used for a wrong purpose it can be dreadful tool which can lead to many dangers such as child pornography, rape, death. It is important to understand that if it is not possible to truly trust everyone you meet in every day life how can you trust someone whose name may not even be known to you?

How many times have you thought of the word privacy when using Facebook, allowing other people to see what’s going on in your private life? How many times have you been aware of the risks involved in sharing informations, photos, thoughts with the rest of the world?

Internet and the social network made a lot in our lives: they connected us with those we don’t see, with those we would like to keep in touch with, or simply with those likeminded people we need to share our beliefs with. But something had to be sacrificed: PRIVACY.

Who to blame for that? No one really, as we internet users allow this to happen anytime, everyday. I think it’s not so uncommon to see today people very young (age range 8-12) who are already using Facebook together with very old people ( my grandpa is not an exception, who at the age of 83 wanted to use this new invention called Facebook).

A huge contradiction? Fact or Fiction? None of them actually, simply the reality of our 2010, full of social network and a new feeling of ‘’global village’’. But, can we really draw the line between privacy and safety? Not really. I very much doubt there might be an effective policy about safety for internet users. Even the FB’s CEO seems to be quite unsuccessful, as people are clearly not aware of the risks involved with the privacy settings.

There is a clear distinction to make when it comes to sharing informations: what is taken for granted by a youth might be potentially very dangerous for the privacy of a worker. So, personally i might share anything which doesn’t affect my academic life or working life, like photos of friends and so on. But definitely not up to share personal informations about my family, my economic status or my private life.

These are the rules of the game. Accept it or you are out. At least today, in 2010!