I’m talking specifically about sharing your whereabouts on social networks. Do you?
The article Please Rob Me: The Dangers of Online Oversharing yesterday got me thinking about this. Sometimes I do promote the fact that I’ll be somewhere, for example if I’m trying to get people to attend something I’m doing at a conference. However, I generally don’t mention going away from home, even though there are people in my house when I’m gone.
Even when you don’t actively push your whereabouts, there are still ways to figure it out. If I update Facebook from a computer with a Texas IP number, Facebook notices it. If I’m tweeting from somewhere in Chicago, Twitter notices it. Even if you think you aren’t oversharing, the horse is already out of the barn on privacy.
I constantly see tweets and Facebook updates announcing specific locations for people: a specific coffee shop, a specific gate at an airport, a specific table in a specific restaurant. How much sharing of where you are is too much?