Reader's response

                In the article “The Perlis of Over-sharing”, Emm (2014) asserts that the precautions should be taken to prevent personal information from leakage. He explains, we might focus too much on the Internet’s convenience and neglect the danger of sharing unnecessary events online. Emm stresses that over-sharing might not only cause personal consequences, but will also threaten the organization we work for. The author also states that we might be in low-guard when using mobile devices as they are not cybercriminals’ preys. In short, we should be cautious when making use of Internet.

                Throughout the whole article, Emm supports his main idea, which is over-sharing causes exposure of our personal details with a few key points and examples from different aspects. Among these points, he discusses about the action of over-sharing and the consequences of it.

Over-sharing can be categorized into two streams, voluntary and involuntary. Voluntary over-sharing merely means sharing without filtering, such as posting selfies and status on social media like Instagram and Facebook. Emm mentions in the second paragraph that Internet is now playing an important role in our daily life and we are growing dependent on it. In second paragraph, “it also exposes the minutiae … data that we share”, it implies Emm agrees with the point to some extends, making use of apps does cause over-sharing problem. As we use these apps to aid us in daily life, they bring convenience to us, but at the same time, our data, for example, our buying preference and our whereabouts, is being collected without our awareness. Therefore, it is considered involuntary over-sharing as we did not intend to share these data with others.

On the other hand, the consequences asserted by Emm can be divided into personal and non-personal two catogeries. The personal consequences can be further catogerised into conscious and unconscious. Sharing our photos and recent updates online is considered sharing consciously as we do intend to share with others and to show these details to others, as mentioned in “what prying eyes can see” and “ the mass of information that we choose to put”, it is clearly shown that Emm agrees that sharing without filtering and without setting limitation of access causes every single detail in our daily life exposed to the public and it might threaten our safety as mentioned “ a criminal knows where you live”.

However, from the example “exposes the minutiae of our daily lives to those who have ability to gather the datait shows that even when we are merely using the social media and never intend to share these information with anyone, the providers are able to get access to them. “App requests permission to read SMS and MMS messages”, it always happens when we have to rely on social media to communicate, shopping online, i-banking or to provide personal details to create an account. Therefore, the providers that offer convenience to us at the same time able to gather our data. In such case, we are unconsciously over-sharing as we are providing information in order to enjoy the convenience but not to share with others, it is a must to share for the consumers and it is the providers’ obligation to prevent leakage. However, we are at the same time aware that we are going to share our personal information with the providers, which contributes to the conscious over-sharing.

For the non-personal over-sharing, as we share the events of the company we working in, although one post does not matter much, but would-be attacker gather all the data from various posts on various social medias and acquire the important content about particular company.

Emm also comments on the use of mobile devices as “a false sense of security when using a mobile device”, he explains, as we sync our data onto online backup system such as iCloud , there is a possibility for others to gain access to our information once they obtained our mobile devices. Emm includes this example in the case of over-sharing, however, syncing onto these systems is meant to be private and safe, even the providers have no authority to access, this scenario is because of losing hardware, a security problem, but not because of sharing over and unnecessarily online, therefore it should be considered as a consequence of over-sharing.