How social media use generates big data, its implications on users’ privacy and ways of addressing privacy issues in the digital age

Thus, it is important for people to understand that a balance between the level of online disclosure and privacy should be examined. Equally, exposing too much information is likely to jeopardize a person’s future in many ways. This paper how social media use generates big data, its implications on users’ privacy and ways of addressing privacy issues in the digital age. How Social Media Use Generates Big Data Social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat allow friends and family members to share their experiences. The posting of messages, uploading of images, and updating of tweets, posts, and videos make social networks a viable field for unstructured data (Bello-Orgaz, Jung, & Camacho, 2016). Some activities are likely to be more popular than others while there are some that will get more followers, reposts, tweets, and sharing.

A status or picture that has been expansively distributed reflects its online popularity. Organizations can use the information to examine how their customers react to their products and services. Positive feedback will encourage companies to produce more of the product. However, negative reactions will shift the attention of firms towards improving the nature of their goods and services. It is significant for an individual to be frugal with his or her personal data to prevent the occurrence of undesirable actions. Stalking is another implication of big data on user’s privacy. Floridi and Taddeo (2016) argues that even though a person may decide to make his or her profile private, links to friendships and affiliated groups remain open to the public. Presently, it is fashionable and trendy to share daily activities, for example, people find it exciting to tag their locations.

Whenever an individual updates where they are, stalkers can note their moves and predict their schedules. Equally, considering approaches of preventing the occurrence of privacy infiltration can be considered as the best way of securing personal online data. The most significant way of enhancing digital security is by conducting a social media risk assessment. An individual must understand the kind of data they need to protect, the person they do not want to access the information, and the extent he or she is willing to go to ensure personal details are safeguarded. It is important for individuals to have strong passwords. Usually, it is easy for hackers to penetrate weak passphrases that use names and numbers that can be guessed (Malhotra, Kim, & Agarwal, 2004).

However, it is notable that big data has negative implications on the privacy of social media users. A lot of personal information can be accessed by the public and used in harmful ways such as stalking and identity theft. Equally, the personal details can be used for impersonation whereby people conduct crimes without the knowledge of original individuals that end up being endangered. Thus, people must always make sure their personal data is secured at all times. Strong passwords can be used to deter hackers from guessing passphrases. H. , Doorey, A. , & Wilcox, G. Living in a big data world: Predicting mobile commerce activity through privacy concerns.  Computers in Human Behavior, 58, 214-220. S. , & Lin, Z. Social media brand community and consumer behavior: Quantifying the relative impact of user-and marketer-generated content.