Why Do People Record Their Private Lives and Make It Public Essay Example for Free

Why Do People Record Their Private Lives and Make It Public Essay Anything and everything that a person posts on the internet and in the media becomes public for anyone to see. Many people in our world today enjoy putting their private lives in public. What’s the point of having a â€Å"private† life if you want to make it public to the rest of the world? There are many social media and networking websites that encourage putting everything about one’s life in public. This can range from video recording our private lives and putting it on YouTube, to writing our biographies on Facebook, to blogging about our daily lives on blogging websites such as Tumblr, Xanga, or Blogspot. This subject can even extend to celebrities and why they put their private lives on television through reality TV shows such as Keeping Up with the Kardashians, The Real Housewives of Orange County, Laguna Beach, or The Real World. With the way that people are presenting their private lives in the media, it is obvious that people are doing this to show off their skills and talents, entertain people, make them more known and popular/become famous, or they want to influence others to do the same and follow their footsteps. As social beings we strive for recognition as well as acceptance from the society that surrounds us. Before the concept of social media via the internet, we aspired to be recognized or to be known by simple word of mouth. However, as the world around us changed, our methods of self expression became easier to spread which led to a wider audience for acknowledgement world-wide due to the accessibility of the computer. With the invention of the computer and the technological advancements of the internet, we see that anyone, anywhere can see what someone is doing, eating, or where we are the moment with which people. Youtube There are over 490 million users on the YouTube website today and there are thousands that still join daily according to the YouTube website. The point of YouTube is so that people can post videos of whatever they want online. Many users on YouTube like posting vlogs, which are video blogs about their days. People also post videos of themselves doing their special talents such as singing, dancing, telling jokes, giving advice, etc. I think many people join YouTube and do this to help them become more known and popular to eventually become famous. In an interview, YouTube user Tramy Nguyen, said â€Å"I joined YouTube and post videos up of significant events that I want to be able to look back on. I like to share my memorable events with people who were not able to attend to experience it with me. † Some people like Tramy post videos for the purpose of sharing memories, however, many other people also record and post videos to get attention. Justin Bieber is someone who got famous by posting videos of him singing at home and was founded through YouTube by the singer, song writer, and producer, Usher Raymond. There are also many people who are considered as â€Å"YouTube famous†. These people get money off of creating and posting videos on YouTube of them singing covers of songs, telling jokes, or even giving advice. The website Worldstarhiphop. com has videos posted of others fighting to get attention. Although the objective of this website was â€Å"a home for entertainment and hip-hop† it is now known as a website for others to watch fights and people getting beat up for entertainment. Above is a picture of the statistics of YouTube. Blogging Websites There are many people in the world that have online blogs from websites such as Xanga, Tumblr, and Blogspot. When it comes to online blogs, I think that people like to write about their days and treat their blogs like diaries. It is ironic that people like to keep online diaries about what goes on in their lives and what they are thinking because people like to keep journals and diaries private. It is understandable that with technology growing and expanding all around us, it is more convenient to type out our thoughts about our days and what goes on in our lives on a computer instead of writing it in a book. However, it does not make sense to be writing it online for everyone to see if you want it to be a like a private online diary. A user of Tumblr, Steven Casner, said â€Å"Blogging was like a way for me to escape reality and allow myself to fall into my own world. When I first created my online blog I wouldnt think anyone would read it. † Though people think that no one would read or find what they write on the internet, it is very easy to search these blogs up with the technology that we have today. Reality Television Reality Television is another way that people put their private lives in public. The show MTV Cribs has celebrities give tours of their homes and gives the celebrities a chance to show off their belongings and how wealthy they are. The hit show on the television network, E! , called Keeping up with the Kardashians is a show about the Kardashian family who are famous because one of the Kardashian sisters is a model. The show is basically just a camera that follows the family members around while they live their daily lives. If there was a camera following a person around all day and every day, how would that person get any privacy in their lives? The reason that this family lets cameras follow them around all day and show people how their lives are is just another way for them to boost their family’s name and get money. There are also shows like the Bachelor where people go on to find love. Can a person really find love with another person while knowing that there are other people watching their every move and know everything that goes on in their relationship? There are also shows like Maury and Jerry Springer where people go on the show to solve the drama that they may have in their lives. If you and a loved one have drama in your lives, you should probably go see a therapist about your problems instead of making it open to the public. Many times, making your problems public will make your problems worse than they already are. Facebook Facebook has become a huge phenomenon since it first started. Facebook is a social networking website where people can add their friends and family members and communicate and connect with them online by writing to them, sharing photos or videos with them, or just updating everyone they are friends with about what is going on in their lives. On Facebook, one can see a person’s biography, where a person is from, where they work or go to school, their birthdays, their emails, their phone numbers, their likes and dislikes, their backgrounds such as race, ethnicity, religion, etc. Once a person puts all of this information about themselves online, it will automatically be available to anyone on the internet, especially with the special technology that we have in our world today. I think that people in our world who have Facebooks have them because it is an easier way to contact and update their friends and family about what is going on in their lives. On Facebook, you can post status updates about how you are feeling, what you are thinking, etc for other to see. After interviewing Facebook user, Lea Abadies, she said, â€Å"I joined Facebook because I wanted a medium where I could keep in touch with my friends and see what they are up to and what is going on in their lives. I also want them to be kept up with what is going on in my life. I’m not going to lie, I also joined Facebook because it seemed like everyone has a Facebook so I gave in to the peer pressure of making an account. After interviewing Lea, I came to the conclusion that many people act upon the fact that â€Å"everyone else† is doing that act also and just give into the pressures of society. Live Streaming Websites Another way that people have a chance of putting their private lives in the public is through live streaming websites where you can stream yourself and let people watch you do whatever it is you want to do online. Websites like Tinychat. com and Blogtv. com allow users to stream themselves from their webcam and allow strangers from all around the world to watch their channel live. Many times, people use these websites so that they can just talk to random strangers because they might be bored or trying to kill some of their free time. By streaming their lives online, it may be very risky because any of the strangers who are watching you could be stalkers, pedophiles, or any other kinds of creeps in the world. By studying even just the environment that one is in while they are streaming, the so-called â€Å"creeps† could find out where you are from, what you like, or whatever else they want to know about that person which can really put the person streaming their personal lives online in danger. This also relates to people who post videos of their lives on YouTube because random people can access your video and study your environment and try hunting down the person who posted the video. This picture is a screenshot of the website Blogtv. com. You can see how many people are currently watching you, how many people are currently streaming, and how many people are currently online on the website. Twitter is another social networking website that many people like to share what they are currently up to or what they are thinking.  With twitter, you are able to have followers and follow others to see what they are currently doing. Many people update their twitters every hour just to let people know what is going on in their lives. Celebrities also use Twitter as another way to connect with their fans. I think people use twitter to update their friends about what is going on with their lives so that their friends would not have to go out of their way in asking and take the time to stay updated in a person’s life because they may have a lot of friends or followers. People do not think about the factors in putting such private information about their lives on the internet and how it may affect them in the future. The fact that everything on the internet is so public, it is very easy to search up anything with the high tech search engines that we have online such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Many times when people apply for jobs or internships, they do not realize that many job places like to do background checks online to see if they can find anything about the applicant that may enhance or lower their chances of getting that certain job. This also happens with schools or anything else in the professional field that people may want to do a special background check for. With technology growing, many people are using it to make their lives become more open to the public. Many people like to do this for the attention and also to share their hobbies or talents to others in the world. There are many different ways that people use to make their lives public whether it be through online blogging, online live streaming, social networking websites, and even reality television. Our world is turning into more of a liberal world instead of a conservative one when it comes to privacy.