Virtual Lecturer Digitally sheds light on Social Media and Privacy.

By Kayla Samek—On a campus like Morningside College, it would be a challenge to find someone who does not use some form of social media; from Facebook to e-mail, social media has become an integral part of daily interaction. However, there are dangers to sharing personal information with these sites. Dr. Jennifer Golbeck, the speaker for the Library’s Virtual Lecture series in the UPS auditorium on Thursday, March 26^th, discussed what companies could infer from the data people post to social media.

Library Intern Bethany Kluender knew the popularity of social media, and thought “social media was an interesting topic” for the Virtual Lecture series and found Dr. Golbeck on TED Talks speaking on the topic. Golbeck agreed to be the Virtual Lecturer.

Dr. Jennifer Golbeck is a computer scientist and professor, who has studied data on social media and inferential statistics. She encourages users to take more responsibility in the data they share online as well as companies being more open about the data they collect, and how they distribute that data.