Social media is not a new phenomenon in modern times. Starting with Myspace and slowly transitioning to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat, people of all ages interact with people across the world with the touch of a button. Along with Gen-Zers and Millennials, older adults have found using social media to be an easy way to reach out to long-lost friends or family members via Facebook and other social platforms.
Although social media is an easy and seamless way to send a message to your friend on the other side of the world by just logging into your Instagram account, privacy concerns have crept up in recent years across all social platforms.
Let’s see the dangers of social media privacy and how a hyperlocal social platform can ease these concerns with the same purpose of helping you come together, be the voice of your city.
Social media privacy concerns
However, one concern that keeps reappearing in the social media world is the issue of privacy. Social networks have shown to be an easy spot for people to pretend to be someone else than who they really are, tricking teenagers, young children, and young adults into forming bonds with an online user who has been lying to them behind a screen.
A study conducted by Pew Trust showed that over 80% of social media users were concerned about organizations, businesses, and third parties gaining access to their information from their account – not just the content they posted on their personal page.
These ever-growing privacy concerns have indeed overshadowed the benefits and conveniences of using social platforms to connect. So – how can we fix these privacy issues?
Come together, be the voice of your city. Use hypersocial local platforms to enhance privacy
Instead of using wide-scale social media to connect with millions of other users, local social platforms are a great way to take back your privacy and remain in your community. Using local social media is an excellent way for individuals and businesses to interact with only the people located in their city, town, or state.
By using hypersocial local platforms, small businesses and individual people can talk with other users connected to them in some way, whether by first or second-hand relationships. The ability to contact someone in your geographical area, which you most likely know through a friend-of-a-friend, is comforting for your peace of mind and privacy.
Using local social platforms have numerous benefits when compared to large scale platforms, such as:
- Businesses using hyper-social platforms can reduce their ad costs by advertising to a smaller scale
- People have the freedom to talk about relevant events going on in their community
- Business customers can speak positively about businesses in the area to help boost the economy
- Hypersocial local platforms are free and easy to use, meaning everyone in the community can connect and get involved
Conclusion
Instead of using extensive and global social platforms with millions of dollars and resources that can quickly and easily hack your privacy, using hypersocial local platforms is an excellent way to get back to what social platforms were designed for – being social with those around you.
Story by Brad Bernanke
Share
AFP
