Initially, topic 4 seemed to be a little more appealing to me, due to the personal relevance of the specific field. It appeared to be easier to write and source when compared to previous topics, which I think shows how interesting and relatable the topic was to me.
The overall issues that were summarised in various blog posts from other students are shown in a table I have created below.
| Ethical concern | Issues that can arise |
| Behavioural targeting | Invasion of personal privacy online |
| Teachers using social media | Being ‘pushed’ offline due to career |
| Lack of internet use/ ‘digital divide’ | Left out of social, educational groups |
| Catfishing | Loss of privacy and identity |
| Having a profession online | Overexposure and stalking from public |
Everybody’s varying views on the ethical issues that can arise online provoked me to think in more detail about whether we ought to consider these as ‘issues’ at all, and perhaps how we can avoid them. As I mentioned briefly in the topic 4 blog post, these ethical concerns would not have existed twenty years ago. The issue is that the more we advance within technology, the more issues we then create for ourselves online.
I have linked below to Allie’s blog post, which included the theory of ‘behavioral targeting’, a term I had never really heard of before. It refers to when someone’s online web-browsing history is studied, and the results are turned into personalised adverts. This is an invasion of privacy for the individual – and something that can be considered majorly off-putting online.
To summarise, topic 4 has shown that there are a wide range of ethical issues that are predominantly present online within business and educational use. It is impossible to say that these issues will ever disappear, and it’s unclear as to whether these issues will ease or increase over time, as the realms of social media broaden. I would like to think that privacy issues will not be such a significant and underlying factor to our social media use in future.
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Alice Bath - Blog 