Privacy what?

Privacy has become something of an anomaly these days. With the invention of the internet many things that were once considered private are no longer so. Now, I realise that I am being extremely vague, but that is because there are so many different aspects when it come to privacy. Certain things have always been considered private, such as credit information and medical records. So long as there are people out there who are willing to damage the integrity of anothers name through identity theft or other misdeed. While these things we are increasingly told to keep hidden, there are other private matters that many are trying to expose, such as spousal abuse, child abuse and other such matters that once went unnoticed.

About two weeks ago I was visiting my parents and some friends in my hometown. I was sitting at the table during dinner when my two younger siblings got into an argument with my father.  My father was telling them how they should be very careful when dealing with people that they meet over the internet. Apparently my siblings have many friends on facebook whom they have never met in person. My father was always the overprotective kind, I can recall him telling me not to go downtown when I was in highschool because that was where all the bad things happened. I was 18 at the time and the town where my highschool was located was comprised of a pizza joint, a hair salon, a donut shop and a few other small, family owned businesses. Hardly the type of downtown where anything even remotely exciting,  let alone “bad” happened. Now back to my original story, here my father is telling my siblings how they shouldn’t associate with people they havent officially met, and that they should be very careful about what they say and do on the internet. My siblings of course, take the defensive stance and say that they can do what they want on the internet and one of them states “If you ever go onto my Facebook or even look at it then I will be soo pissed, its private”. My siblings also wont accept my parents friend invites because they dont want them to see something or other, now believe me, I have them on Facebook, and theres nothing on there worth hiding. This was all so very ironic because I had just been reading about privacy in my textbook and instantly the quote about older generations being more privacy concerned online and younger generations being less so popped into my head. So here I am, quietly eating and watching this unfold in delight, afterall, what a perfect blog topic! Clearly my siblings are more worried about my parents invading their privacy then the people whom they have never met nor  have any reason to trust. This just seems rediculous to me! Are all younger generations so unconcerned and not worried about the dangers that are on the internet. There is another issue that came into my head during this argument. How far can a parent go in trying to protect their children from having their privacy infringed upon without being considered infringing on it themselves.  Obviously as a parent you deserve a right to know about the things your children are doing. Do you think that parents need to allow them privacy in their online actions, or do you believe that parents should be able to observe it. Just to put everything into perspective, my siblings are in their teens. Let me know what you think!