“What are the concerns and ethical challenges that come along with communicating through different technologies, and how do we manage them?” – The answer to this question would definitely vary from person to person. Technologies like your phone and your computer allow you hundreds of ways to communicate with other people, both positive, negative, and in between.
Social media apps like Discord, Instagram, Tiktok, websites like Google, YouTube, Amazon, etc. Even for people like myself who “seldom interact with such services” (Shahbaz & Funk), there is information about my “personal identity” which is scraped from simply just shopping online for leather watch bands or walking to the nearby grocery store to get a bag of chips.
When I was in High School taking classes on Networking / Cybersecurity, my professor, Mr. R, was (still is!) very big on the right to privacy. He and I would talk about how you can never truly remove your “digital footprint” but you can minimize it to the best of your ability. A person (myself for example) would want to minimize their digital footprint to reduce the chance of identity theft, negative impacts on my reputation, or simply people finding things out about me that I don’t want them to know.
In recent years I’ve seen that students who would say nasty things to others at my college would also try to reduce their digital footprint to prevent their real identity being discovered online, an example being on the Yik Yak “pseudo-anonymous” social media app I mentioned in my last post.
Yik Yak has been highly criticized for the way it functions, it enables students to make “blatant expressions of racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, and other toxic attitudes” (Dennis). Those who are behind the screen are experiencing an “online disinhibition effect” (Suler). In lecture 3.1 Digital Values of DIGC 3600 from the University of Pennsylvania, the online disinhibition effect (ODE) is directly explained as “a phenomenon where people in cyberspace do or say things they would not say or do in “real-life”/analog situations, as they feel less restrained and more willing or able to express themselves freely.” (Krieger). While this can be positive (specifically for people who are shy or socially awkward), most students I’ve seen are affected by “toxic online disinhibition”, the negative behaviors that ODE encompasses.
Why is this bad? Simply because these students feel less restrained to say very nasty things about other students. They believe they are anonymous by reducing their digital footprint and by using these pseudo-anonymous apps. I am prone to online disinhibition myself, as are most people who use social media. The disconnect between the person on the other site is noticeable and asynchronous communication can cause us to grow a deficit in our empathy.
To navigate around these ethical challenges, there are many methods you can use. While it’s nearly impossible to not be tracked by today’s standard: the modern smartphone is a GPS in your pocket (a government-standardized navigation, positioning, and tracking system), you can reduce certain tracking methods by using a secure web browser eg. Librewolf, being careful on which sites you go on, being careful regarding where you access your sites of choice, and surrounding yourself with people who support you in person rather than negative people who bring you down behind the screen. Our desire for anonymity, to protect our privacy is shaping how we communicate, and it is (to me) best we do it to protect ourselves.
Works Cited
Dennis, Dannah. “Yik Yak on Campus: Navigating Identity and Violence through Hyperlocal Anonymity.” MediaWell, Social Science Research Council, 1 Nov. 2023, https://just-tech.ssrc.org/articles/yik-yak-on-campus-navigating-identity-and-violence-through-hyperlocal-anonymity/.
“Personal and Social Identity: Who Are You Through Others’ Eyes” Psychology Today. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lifetime-connections/202110/personal-and-social-identity-who-are-you-through-others-eyes. Accessed 3 Jul. 2025.
“Social Media Surveillance.” Freedom House, https://freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-on-the-net/2019/the-crisis-of-social-media/social-media-surveillance. Accessed 3 Jul. 2025.
Suler, John. “The Online Disinhibition Effect.” CyberPsychology & Behavior, vol. 7, no. 3, Jun. 2004, pp. 321–26. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1089/1094931041291295.