Some time ago Snapchat application was released and made a great success on market especially among young people. Snapchat started as a simple communicator with one important feature – there is no message history or any different archive. Every message, photo, video which you receive from your friend is automatically removed. You have only short time to read it. Now Facebook announced that it starts testing similar functionality in their own communicator - Messenger.
It seems that temporary messages are gaining in popularity. Facebook also announced that all those private messages will be secured and encrypted to prevent hacking attack or capture tries. Everything to safety user privacy. And this “safety” and “privacy” is the common factor of popularity for both applications. Youth have new way to send “hidden” messages like rumors and secrets, but also new tool to send some very private pictures. We can compare this fast, short-term messages to some relations in real life.
When we talk to someone, everything stays between us – we are. not leave any tracks. We need to remember what someone tells us, if we forgot we need ask about it.. we haven’t got possibilities to find that conversation anywhere, unless it is recorded. Hidden messages idea is the same. There is no archive. So if you send some text, it’s similar to say something, if you send some video – it’s familiar to show /share some scene, situation friends who is close to you, if we send some picture or selfie – it’s the same as we show it in real.
But, generally as in real life – we have some dangerous situation here. Generally people think that they are anonymous on the Internet. It is not true. Anonymous accounts, fake accounts or some nicknames give us some fake sense of security. But when we are sending something by the internet – there is always a risk that someone can “listen” to our traffic, and capture our data.
There was always risk that someone breaks….. ours passwords and has access to archive of our data. There is a risk that someone hacks into ours mailbox, or into ours communicator. Ours Internet activity always converts the information into data – and this data are always saved. Even if we send some temporary messages via Snapchat or soon by Messanger – our data will be saved on some servers. Even if only temporarily temporary only, but they will. Is it a problem? Maybe not. Usual usage of those applications probably is like a fun for people. Rumors, secrets even some pictures generally are not so sensitive as we think about it. But, especially Youths should think what kind of pictures they sent. I mean e.g. about naked photos – there are known situations when some girl sent to her boyfriend some intimate picture, just for fun, but later this photo was sent to others or was available public in internet.
Short term messages or hidden messages can give as feeling that we have control about it – but we don’t. We need to have consciousness that there are possibilities to save all our information which we sent to someone. But of course in real life we have the same analogies. Indeed every time we can be recorded by someone, we can be followed by someone, abused or pursued. So generally we should care about our activity.
Excellent write!