Oversharing trap is defined as the habit of sharing day to day detail of our life on digital and social media without recognizing the secondary security and privacy risk. It's considered a trap because users believe they are simply sharing harmless personal updates with friends. The reality is that very time we share things on social media, we are providing cybercriminals with actionable data.
The Harvard Business School article, identifies four traps:
Identity Trap
Information shared on social media can provide security verification questions that are used by banks, email providers, and utilities.
Physical Safety
Posting real-time locations, sharing pictures of the restaurants you're currently at, or sharing countdowns on upcoming vacations allow people to get an idea of your daily routines and possible when your home is empty.
Hyper-Targeted Scams
Sharing your itineraries, hobbies, or recent purchases allow scammers to create realistic text messages tailored to your actions.
AI and Deep Fakes
By using fun filters, videos, and voice notes, this allows scammers to reuse it in deepfakes, voice scams, or bypass voice authenticated systems.
Oversharing trap dismantles both digital and physical boundaries, leading to long-term exposure and physical vulnerabilities. By sharing your locations or other ways to find your physical location can expose you to severe physical risks such as stalking and burglary. The more you share, the less privacy autonomy you have. Regardless if you delete something, data remains accessible and can be reshared.
In terms of cybersecurity, oversharing creates a severe cybersecurity vulnerability by allowing account takeovers and personalized scams. Cybercriminals systematically gather everyday personal details from profiles shared on social media such as birthdays, schools, or first pet that can be used for security questions.
Digital Wellness refers to the practice of maintaining a healthy, balanced and sustainable relationship with technology in a digital connected world as defined in O'Byrne's article. It's a combination of psychological and emotional well-being where individuals are not overwhelmed by the digital world. To maintain a digital wellness, users must practice self-compassion, reject unattainable standards, and occasionally use digital detox to disconnect.
Privacy Fatigue has been defined as a state of mental exhaustion and burnout that occurs when people are overwhelmed by managing their personal data in O'Byrne's article. The constant pop-us of cookies consent, tracking permissions, software updates and notification of data breaches can cause users to become overwhelmed. This can create a psychological state of learned helplessness, causing users to feel powerless and believe that any personal effort to protect their information is pointless. This causes users to reuse passwords and automatically accpt all on privacy policies.
In terms of privacy, privacy fatigue and digital wellness plays a critical role in determining an individual's privacy autonomy by how they interact with data collection frameworks. The cognitive overload of constantly having to manage privacy settings and learning about data breaches causes learned helplessness. This causes individuals to automatically agree to data tracking forms and give up their privacy rights. On the other had, digital wellness allows for privacy by default and protects the user's mental wellbeing and data autonomy.