One day I was working at a coffee shop when an acquaintance wandered in. Eyeing my laptop, he asked if he could please use it for a couple of minutes to send an email. When he finished, he thanked me profusely; he was trying to land an important job and that email was essential. I knew he’d previously worked in computer security, and he explained that this new job was also in that field. So I asked the obvious question… If this email was so important, why didn’t he just send it from home? He laughed: “I don’t have a computer!”

He explained: Computers are just not safe. In his work, he only used ultra-secure machines provided by his employers. Otherwise, he did nothing via computer. When it was absolutely necessary, he went to libraries or coffee shops and mooched. If you have no machine of your own, he explained, you have no IP address following you around. I made some comment about how Edward Snowden would be proud, and my friend laughed again. “That’s the goal,” he said.

All of which is to say: anyone doing anything online nowadays has tacitly surrendered their right to privacy. Except in the case of very technologically savvy individuals who take very extreme measures, the idea of privacy is an utter fantasy.

And although like most people I have made my own uneasy peace with that reality, I prefer not to require students to make more compromises with their privacy than absolutely necessary. They need to use Blackboard and access materials located on certain websites (the New York Times, mostly) where I of course can’t vouch for the security of their data, but I prefer not to require them to use platforms such as Facebook or Instagram which notoriously misappropriate and exploit their personal data. As the saying goes: If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.

Coincidentally, for the past few semesters I’ve had students do a unit on social media. They read a number of pieces on the subject (see below for an example) ranging from personal accounts to more academic discussions of issues related to SM such as privacy and implications for emotional and intellectual well-being, and then they write essays based on their own previous experiences with SM. Without going into specifics, I can say that in numerous cases their accounts have hardened my resolve not to be the one responsible for their involvement in that realm.

Certainly there may be courses wherein a credible argument might be made to justify compelling students to enter the world of social media. (In some instances, this would in fact amount to compelling them to re-enter that world, as many report having abandoned it for one reason or another, some of these downright hair-raising.) But it seems to me that such courses would be rare exceptions, and in those cases the instructor would have a responsibility to inform students about the known concerns related to these platforms and companies, and possibly to offer alternatives to those who prefer to opt out.

Another relevant issue is that of one as an instructor maintaining privacy on one’s own social media accounts. I use a variation of my name on Facebook to avoid having students find me there, though I’m probably easy to find on Twitter. That said, I don’t get the idea that my students have much interest in my social media. But I can imagine that in some cases this could be problematic.

I should clarify also that when I talk about my students’ bad experiences with SM, it’s usually to do with things like bullying, stalking, toxic gossip, family discord, and discovering infidelity than with misuse of their data. Whatever the issue, the SM environment is fraught enough that I prefer not to encourage (much less require) anyone to participate.

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For further reading:

Jean Twenge is a professor at San Diego State University and is the author of more than 130 scientific publications and 6 books. She has been researching and writing about the effects of new technology on young people for many years. In this major article in The Atlantic, “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?”, Twenge offers a summary of what we know about how smartphones and social media are affecting teens these days.