Information Privacy

Chapter 5, Information Privacy, proves very relevant to the film Eighth Grade. This is shown most obviously in the context of Kayla Day’s (the protagonist’s) online footprint. Kayla is shown using many social media platforms throughout the course of the movie, namely, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. While there are no clear breaches of any character’s digital privacy shown in the film, there are explicit and implicit privacy risks throughout. With this, there is a lack of concern and caution towards privacy from the characters; their eagerness to share personal information on social media platforms comes with an equal indifference towards risking their personal privacy. The characters’ social media use is a widely accepted part of their daily lives. 

Kayla’s YouTube channel allows much information about her to be in the public eye. In the opening scene of the film, Kayla is shown filming a video, in which she shows her face. Her channel is briefly shown to be under her own name, minutes later. Towards the end of the film, Kayla’s friend, Gabe, tells Kayla that he has seen some of her YouTube videos. This means that, as a minor, Kayla’s name, face, and aspects of her identity, have been made very public, and that other people are able to quite easily find her channel and access this information on her. Kayla’s use of other social media platforms, in regard to what is being shared and its accessibility, is not as clear in the film. However, these platforms are known to collect data on their users, thus, one can infer that with Kayla’s large amount of screen time, there is a strong possibility that much data is being gathered on her, behind the scenes, as she uses these social media platforms.

Besides data collection, another privacy issue mentioned regarding social media platforms is that of sharing sexually explicit content. Throughout the film, characters make references to explicit images sent over text, or through Snapchat. Regarding Snapchat specifically, the high schoolers at the mall quickly attribute the platform to the threat of receiving unsolicited explicit pictures. All of this, while not heavily explored in the film but rather briefly mentioned from time to time, shows how easy social media makes it to share this type of content, and perhaps, have it shared without one’s permission.