03-11-2016, 11:06 AM
Masking what’s on your mind – Communiction and privacy strategies used by youngsters on facebook
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Introduction
At the global level, the evolution of new media technologies has resulted in the phenomenal expansion of activities beyond the borders of particular nation states[23]. It has also created what experts call the ‘virtual’ public sphere. It has redefined geographical space and the relationship between the public, the media and state. (20). While the spirit of public sphere embodies free communication of thoughts and ideas, it also threatens the concept of privacy. This is true for both online and offline public spheres. The idea of a global platform accessible at all times to all people is not compatible with privacy at all times. The right to be left alone cannot be exercised in such a setting. (20).
Facebook as a public sphere
Facebook has emerged into a major breeding ground of growing public spheres all over the world. There are people from all over the world in the network called Facebook. According to Macloughlin, 2010, ‘participatory websites’ can be viewed as systems which breathe new life into the old idea of public sphere as they break all the demographic barriers like race, age, gender etc. He asserts that the creation of a borderless space uncontrolled by geography can result in networks of people functioning as one whole - the idea of a Habermasian Coffee House adapted to the virtual space.
Another result of the creation of this borderless space is the potential for like-minded individuals to unite across time and space, making the computer a ‘second self’. According to (1), the computer can assume the place given to human relationships because of its ability to link like-minded people. But the downside is instead of real human reactions, words on screens become the conduit for exchanging pleasantries, engaging in intellectual discourse, brainstorming, falling in love and more argues (2).
While the idea of disappearing inequalities is appealing, the concept of computer mediated interactions in an unregulated populous space arbitrated by commercial operators with debatable ethics brings with it concerns of humanity and privacy.
Privacy concerns in Facebook:
Facebook has been trending since 2004. Meant for Harvard students as a private information sharing mechanism, it has grown into one of the largest online network of people. Some maintain that people were much more comfortable with
opening themselves up when it was just for the University students [10]. For a great majority today, it is a place where they bare their souls.
Internal threats to privacy-
According to a report commissioned by the Belgium government which studies Facebook’s revised Data Use Policy 2015 says the company does not clearly spell out how it uses consumer data. Hypothetical and vague language is used. Users have very limited choice, they either take it or leave it and this is the way the platform uses its dominant position in the market to track individual behavior across services and devices. Facebook uses customer data for advertising purposes and till date users are not clear about how this is done. (11)
The collection of meta-data has always been problematic in internet-related information gathering, more so in Facebook. The sharing of information with third-parties is extremely tricky and most often than not involves some form of intrusion into privacy.
Facebook’s recent integration of open-graph apps on its timeline has the potential to put all customers at the risk of inadvertently sharing information they don’t want to share. (3)
A Facebook user hacked the account of Facebook founder Zuckerberg to demonstrate a bug in their security system. (4). Apart from this, there have been many reports about Facebook misuse of customer data. It is alleged that the site continues storing data of deactivated or deleted accounts, and there is no easy way to delete you content rather than deleting everything by hand. Yet another controversial move by Facebook was Face recognition software that was introduced into the system. This was considered a serious breach of privacy by many customers (6)
External threats for privacy –
Facebook’s list of major potential external dangers include identity threat, sexual offenders, stalking, unintentional fame, online victimization, location updates etc (5). Despite the high decibel media discourse around privacy violations, a sizeable percentage of people are not even aware of inbuilt privacy settings in Facebook. They do not know or haven’t set these settings to their favor (7). 11% of people who uses Facebook have reported that they have faced issues concerning misused logins and activities on Facebook in 2014
25% have also reported that they have changed their details on their profiles for security concerns (12). Another major threat in Facebook is the threat of fake names for the accounts. There are many instances of customers who hide their identity as a part of privacy strategy that they adopt or there are others who have a negative thought process and want to use the fake identity to harm others. Then there are other cases wherein people want to genuinely create a profile in their own real name but Facebook’s policy does not allow it. For example, Indians so not have surnames but they have initials. Facebook hasn’t recognized this and so Indians will have to have a surname inorder to be in Facebook. (8)
To summarize
While the debate about the creation of public sphere on social media platforms is still raging inconclusively struck in questions of disparity of access, the idea of an uncontrolled space attracts youngsters across the world. 94% of world population uses Facebook on a regular basis and 95% of youngsters use Facebook, out of which 81% use multiple social sites (9). 29.7% of users are in the age group of 17 to 23, the most common age demographic among Facebook users (13) and the one chosen for the purposes of this study. Privacy, according to Maritza, Egleman and Beelovin, 2012 is “an interpersonal boundary regulation process used by people to regulate their interactions with others”. This simple definition throws into context the privacy issues in Facebook including profile security, geo-tagging, data sharing with third party apps and security of conversations to name a few. This has increased the privacy concern of teenagers by 23% (15).While the teenagers have been sensitized to the issue of privacy violations, the techniques that they have adopted/created for the purpose of safeguarding themselves in this environment is an important area of study. The current research undertakes a qualitative analysis of the methods of communication engaged for privacy by teenagers on Facebook.
Chapter II
Literature review:
Privacy:
There are many research articles that touch upon the topic of privacy-be it physical or psychological. Privacy, according to Boyd and Marwick in 2011, is a social construct that holds a mirror to the everyday rules of people and it differs from individual to individual depending on their definitions and the context in which they locate it.
The way teenagers or young adults see privacy is vastly different from adult conceptions of the term according to (16). For youngsters, it means avoiding surveillance from immediate authority figures who they feel are interfering with their lives. They want to be left alone.
Privacy according to youngsters is the ability to be in charge of a social situation. Taking the social media situation, it can mean their ability to control the information that they put out in terms of who sees them and when they see them. It can also mean control of their online presence, who sees them and when they see them. Unfortunately, in the case of teenagers their agency is often undermined by the people who complain that they are careless about privacy online – their parents. In many cases, technology and authority figures combine to undermine their agency and therefore privacy, violating boundaries and norms these youngsters draw to guard themselves.(17). The current study refers to institutional privacy as internal threats and social privacy as external threats to privacy.
Facebook’s inbuilt privacy settings:
“It is also imperative that we all understand that we don’t have to share that information. It isn’t just Facebook’s responsibility to look after our privacy, it is ours as well”, says Mark Zuckerberg when talking about Facebook’s privacy policy. The founder of Facebook himself tells us that Facebook customers require additional privacy apart from the default settings. Privacy settings can be faulty too and according to Wilson (2013), “The privacy settings are just that, to ensure privacy within the closed garden setting of Facebook. But they are not foolproof and you shouldn’t bank on the fact that your info isn’t also visible to others”.
Strategies of privacy:
Oolo & Siibak in 2013 have proposed 3 privacy strategies that youngsters use in the Facebook. But there are other researchers like Patti & Peter (2011) who have proposed other strategies too. The strategies proposed by them are anonymity, asynchronicity and accessibility. Anonymity means the fake identities that are used by the users, asynchronicity means the process wherein you can go back and alter the contents posted by the users and accessibility means again altering your identity. Accessibility is different from anonymity by the means that in Accessibilty only a certain feature is altered whereas in anonymity the identity itself changes. In Johnson, Egleman & Bellovin, the strategies are broadly classified as the outsider’s threat, which means bullying etc, and insider’s threats, which means fake ids, nighmare friends etc. When looking at other strategies in an overall manner, you see that all of them by various authors like Patti (2011), Johnson, Egelman & Bellovin (2012) etc, have talked more or less in terms of the strategies suggested by Oolo & Siibak in 2013. Oolo & Siibak (2013) have defined all these strategies in a precise manner in their research. Those strategies are- Selective information sharing, Fake and Multiple identities and Super logging. They almost contains all the other strategies mentioned by other researchers.
Chapter III
Research Objective:
The research objectives are
• To find out how far youngsters use the Facebook privacy settings and how they rate these inbuilt privacy strategies in terms of efficacy and the reasons thereof.
To explore other strategies used by youngsters for privacy and the efficacy of these strategies and the reasons thereof.
• To find out the purpose and the context of usage for these strategies.
Chapter IV
Theoretical Framework:
The research is based on the framework given by Roger’s Protection Motivation Theory. The theory talks about the 4 reasons wherein a person feels the need to protect herself. The theory was first adapted by health industry wherein the reasons for patients to engage in protecting themselves emerged from research. (19)
As mentioned earlier the theory talks about the 4 main reasons a person feels the need to protect herself. They are-
1) The perceived severity of a threatening event
2) The perceived probability of the occurrence
3) The efficacy of the recommended preventive behavior
4) The perceived self-efficacy
The theory talks about perceived severity of a threatening event. Based on this, 3 measures- high, low and medium, were derived to determine the severity of the threat.
Research on social media confirms that youngsters feel vulnerable in the setting (reference) and they are increasingly adopting strategies. A list of strategies derived from Oolo & Sibak (2012) and expert opinion were used to construct the methodological framework.
The interview questions were framed for evaluating perceived response efficacy. Perceived self efficacy in terms of male and female interviewees was also studied.
Chapter V
Methodology:
The methodology used by the researchers is qualitative. The method pursued for data collection is in-depth interview with experts in the field and youngsters who fell into the 17 – 23 age brackets. The age group is chosen according to a survey conducted in India that says these age groups are the ones that use Facebook the most (9). The methodology is dependent on these variables derived from a study by Oolo & Siibak (2011)
• Selective information sharing
• Super logging
• Fake and multiple identities
• Alternate words
• Frequently used dialogues and songs
• Acronyms
The experts include Dr.Vinod Bhattathirippad (a cyber expert) and Dr.Sheela (a psychologist). In depth interview of youngsters are conducted with 2 youngsters- a girl of 19 years of age and a boy of 21 years of age.
The interview was conducted in a semi structured setting. The interviews were face to face in a neutral setting. The questions asked were about the different kinds of strategies of privacy used, the reasons for using it, the perceived efficacy of the strategies and the level of privacy achieved through these strategies. The experts employed were Dr. Vinod Bhattathiripad and Dr. Sheela. Dr. Vinod is a cyber crime and cyber forensic specialist. He is also the official cyber forensic official of Kerala police department. He also holds a PhD in cyber abuse and its implication in varied layers. Dr. Vinod has also authored many books on cyber forensic, cyber crimes as well as cyber abuse. Dr. Sheela is a clinical psychologist from the Calicut Medical College. She has a PhD in cyber behavior. She also travels to different places in order to present papers on the online behavior of youngsters as well as adults. She has years of experience in the field of cyber behavior.
Chapter VI
Analysis:
Dr. Vinod Bhattathirippad says that, whoever hides things in a social public place, while conversing with others, are said to employ social steganography. He also adds that when this is done in a social media platform like Facebook, this is bound to have a large impact on others as well as the person employing it. This research focuses on the strategies employed by youngsters on Facebook, about the level of privacy they plan to achieve with these strategies, the prime reasons and triggers for resorting to these strategies and the perceived efficacy of these strategies.
Selective Information Sharing:
This is an inbuilt privacy option offered to users by Facebook. Using these settings we can restrict the number of persons and the persons who can actually see the particular post created by the user. This inbuilt strategy is widely used by almost everyone on Facebook. When asked about this, the 19-year-old-girl said this was one of the basic strategies she and her friends used every time they were on Facebook. Therefore, she did not consider it a strategy. This is an automatic step she and her friends employ to control and restrict access. While the question of employment of this strategy was put forward to the 21-year-old-boy, he claimed that he was not even conscious of this strategy; it was something he did every time he posted on Facebook. He had never thought about it as a separate strategy for privacy. Ever since Facebook has introduced a way for restricting who views a post, youngsters have used it diligently and now they do this unconsciously as well too. These youngsters don’t even realize that what they do is a privacy strategy. The process is so inbuilt in them that they do not regard the process as a strategy at all. According to them most of their peers also employ this strategy unconsciously and unknowingly.
When asked about the level of privacy they achieve through this strategy, both the male and female said that the privacy level achieved was low. Both the male and female subjects interviewed rated the privacy level achieved by this strategy as low. The male subject commented that a privacy strategy can be rated high only if it is highly secretive, but in this case, this selective sharing is done by almost everyone using Facebook, so one cannot deem it as high level.
Level of privacy. The psychologist, Dr. Sheela, says that the level of privacy achieved can be linked at times to the mentality and the mind of the youngster. When you know that so many of your friends use a strategy, you automatically think that its credibility is weak, especially when it comes to privacy strategy. Dr.Sheela said that when one of her patients came to her with a serious issue of privacy encroachment she asked the patient to lie low and not actually bother about what others say. The answer given to her for this comment was that this was something almost everybody does at the time of a crisis, so I don’t want to do it! Doctor says that this may be the reason why youngsters deem this strategy as a low level privacy strategy.
The reason for using this strategy, according to the male, is that it is present in Facebook. Just because Facebook gives us a facility of choosing the persons who can see our post, youngsters use it. The perceived efficacy in this case seems to be connected to the fact that the facility is freely available to everyone. Dr. Sheela’s assessment of human nature and the value they attach to things they take-for-granted matches the male subject’s reaction. The female subject’s reaction is a typical case of peer pressure. All her friends use this facility on Facebook, and she also uses it, even though she does not think very highly of it. It might also be because her friends also rate this strategy to be low. The psychologist also says that peer pressure plays a huge role in social media situations in a youngster’s life, especially a girl’s one. The perceived efficacy of this strategy remains low in the case of both male and female subjects, even though this strategy is used regularly. The cyber specialist says that this strategy is a very useful one. He rates it as high because, he says that as this is one of the strategies that many people use, the user will never be caught. As many people use it, it is seldom that people regard it seriously and never be dug deep. So he says that the regular use of this strategy can be used to a very effective extend if the user uses it with care and caution.
Super Log:
Super logging is a strategy used by youngsters widely on Facebook. Instead of signing out of the account, the user deactivates the account temporarily, only to reactivate it the next day. The deactivated user gets to retain his friend connections, wall posts, photos, but for the period of deactivation cannot be seen or tagged and nobody can post on his wall. When the user is ready, he reactivates his account and continues as before. According to social media expert Danah Boyd, this is a way of not letting the digital body stick around when the person is not there. (14)
This is used by both sexes on Facebook. The male sample said that he uses this strategy when he is mildly threatened by the ‘nightmare’ friends he has on social media. Nightmare friends on Facebook are the ones that we seek privacy from. For example parents, relaives, elders of the family etc. He says that the most interesting thing about this strategy is that it erases all your presence on social media.” After applying this strategy, you will not be having any traces of your online presence”, says the male sample. Female sample feels that this strategy is also not very effective. She feels that this strategy, instead of hiding the information, may actually intimate people about the presence of something bound to be hidden. This can caution‘nightmare’ friends. This is one of the unwanted troubles when you want something to be hidden
The female sample does not approve of this strategy. She also adds that when the problem is not of a great magnitude and in a situation where privacy need not be kept steadfast, she usually uses this strategy. The male sample is more positive towards this strategy and tells us that this strategy is a semi fool proof strategy to be engaged in in the social media like Facebook.
The level of privacy achieved through this strategy is perceived differently by the male and female subjects. While male rates the level as medium and satisfactory, female sample rates it low in terms of the level of privacy achieved. The male sample says that when people do not see you insocial media, they do not dig in to see your facts that you do not want them to see. So it renders you safe in your online space. The female sample says that this strategy makes them vulnerable to threats because of the fact that when one day you are suddenly missing, people obviously become suspicious of your activities and they begin questioning your credibility and this can become a big threat to masking what’s on your mind. Dr.Sheela, the psychologist says that, even though a sudden withdrawal from the social network may be inviting, it can create insecurities in the youngsters, in long run. Dr. Sheela explains that basically this strategy pushes you into a false belief of security but eventually lets you down. She rates this strategy as low on level of privacy achieved due to the long-term psychological factor.
The cyber specialist agrees with the psychologist and says that absence of a person who was very active in social network may seem really fishy to other people. This may also lead to creating a whole lot of problems in people like identity crisis, depression etc. This strategy uses the act of disappearance from the social scene. He says that this can lead to many more problems, which in turn can disrupt the privacy they were trying to guard.
The reason for youngsters engaging in this strategy is due to the fact that the whole of a person’s identity vanishes once it is employed. Male sample uses this strategy for the sense of security it gives it to him. The female sample is not a big fan of engaging in this strategy because of the fact that vanishing from social network can create suspicions. Dr.Sheela tells us that youngsters may be using this particular strategy because of a threat from bullies. It is when bullies attack that one will have the tendency to vanish from that spot. This opinion is seconded by the female sample as she adds that she used this strategy once when she was cyber bullied and had to escape from it. Dr.Sheela tells us that she had a patient, a girl of 19 years, who was an avid user of the social networking media, Facebook. She used to update all of her statuses based on her daily routine. One day she got a Facebook kidnap threat message from an unknown person. Frightened, she deactivated her account and from then on she regularly deactivates her account on a daily basis.
The strategy does not meet with Dr.Sheela’s approval, as she feels that in the Indian context this strategy makes the user seem vulnerable and unstable. Female sample also states that the efficacy level of this strategy is very low and that it cannot be used as a full-fledged strategy for hiding messages on Facebook. The male sample tells us that this strategy is high on efficacy as it erases a person’s presence and this in turn contributes to the feeling of security.
Dr. Sheela says that this difference in the efficacy of the strategy between the male and female subject is deeply rooted in the society. If something happens to a male, the society is not that much bothered, but even if there is a small concern about female, the society comes to ask. So when a male subject disappears from the social media, no one is concerned, but if it’s a female subject, the problems are multi layered for them.
Fake and Multiple Identities:
This is a strategy that involves faking your name and identity so that people do not recognize you for who you really are. Some people have multiple fake identities. Another way to achieve the same effect is by making multiple accounts in your own name with different personalities. This way, people cannot locate your original profile and your activities. This is a usual strategy adopted by people on Facebook. If not for hiding, they use it to ward off attention from them, this is true of celebrity users.
This strategy is used more by females, while males seldom go into this strategy. Female users of Facebook have been known to play games with multiple as well as fake personalities (15). The female sample of the research adds that she feels secure when she uses this technique. When they change their names and personalities in the virtual world, youngsters feel safer and feel that nobody can find them there. Females who use this strategy, feel more secure. It is like putting on a mask that keeps people from seeing their real self. The strategy of fake personalities has been found in plenty in social media platforms (18)
Dr. Sheela describes a similar situation she had encountered with one of her patients. A patient’s parents had come to the doctor seeking treatment for their daughter. Her problem was that she was convinced that she was Selena Gomez. This particular girl was very active on Facebook. Her Facebook name was Selena Gomez and she was a huge fan of Gomez. Her family began noticing changes in her behavior. The first thing they noticed was the change in her dressing style. She began dressing up and imitating Gomez. She became obsessed.
A case of multiple personalities was documented by Dr.Vinod Bhattathirippad also. Police were on the look-out for a terrorist who had crossed borders to India. When looking up for his profile, they came across 50 such profiles with the same name but different personality. How do you know which one is used for anti-national activities? This is one of the most important uses of this strategy.
The privacy level achieved through this strategy is rated high by female sample. She says that as the personality itself is changed, there is no way one can be identified and this can prove to be really beneficiary to the person. Fake identities can be found out, but multiple personalities cannot be found out at all. Dr.Sheela is of a different opinion. She says that fake personalities can be traced by their behavior as well as the information they expose to public. There are times when multiple personalities too lose their grounding. Unless all the multiple accounts have similar activity, one can easily find out the real one through the activities as well as their frequency. So according to Dr. Sheela, privacy level achieved through this strategy is just of medium strength.
Reasons for indulging in such a strategy, according to teenagers are cyber bullying as well as peer pressure. When everybody else has a lot of friends, lack of friends might become a stigma. So in an effort to gain friends, youngsters might decide to change their personality, put on statuses that they normally will never put up and through these they may try to gain friends.. Another reason is bullying. If the regular profile is known to the bully, then there is a need for another profile. Succumbing to the circumstances, one will definitely change their name and personality, so that the bullying stops. Even complaining about the bully has to happen after one hides oneself behind another name and personality, in this case clearly for security reasons.
The perceived efficacy of this strategy is high among the interviewees. This is due to the fact that they feel secure wearing the mask of another person. But according to Dr.Sheela the efficacy can be considered only medium. This is due to the easy traceability of the original personality in both the cases. Dr. Vinod Bhattathirippad tells us that the efficacy of this strategy is medium as however you conceal your identity from other people, your identity somehow comes out from the curtain at one time or the other. So he says that the strategy is not very effective and ranks it very medium.
Other strategies
Alternate words (social steganography):
Alternate words mean usage of words that are far away from their signifiers in their meanings. This strategy can be deciphered only by people very close to the person employing them. Alternate words can evolve into a type of code when done frequently. The experts say that this is a very rare strategy, used by not many people,because use of it can be misunderstood in more than one way. Alternate words must be used carefully and cautiously only with people you are completely sure will understand the usage. A person who uses them usually personalizes it with usage of words, numbers or even alpha numerals or symbols.
This is done both by female as well as the male subjects. This is when alternate ways are found out to convey a message to someone. Female sample tells the researchers that she uses this strategy once in a while when she has some serious messages to be passed. Male sample tells that he uses it often to convey his message to his friends. Female sample tells that she uses only when there is high risk involved in others understanding the hidden message in the status posted. The male sample tells us that he uses it often to camouflage the hidden message he passes to other people through his Facebook status.
Dr. Vinod Bhattathirippad also tells the researchers about the various coding that people use to hide messages. He says youngsters employ techniques from simple mathematics or a play of alphabets to complicated mathematical formulas in order to code messages that need to be transmitted. People even hide things in a photograph. Photography hiding is usually done by anti national criminals. Dr. Sheela reveals to the researchers about a case wherein two youngsters used to constantly pass information on Facebook statuses through the use of alternate words.
Dr. Vinod tells us about a case he had to endure wherein these codes or alternate words were embedded in a picture. This was used by a group of hackers. They morphed a picture of a famous actress into a nude model. They then embedded an alternate word in the description of the picture. This way a cyber expert when looking for an embedded message inside the picture will never understand what message was actually passed through it. The chances of an expert thinking of an embedded message in the morphed picture are a rarity and even if they found out, they will not go into an alternate word search. The morphing and the controversy the picture will garner were used as a hiding technique to put forward a message in an alternate word strategy. Multiple layers of protection were used in this case.
The perception regarding the level of privacy achieved through this strategy differs between the subjects. For the female sample the level of privacy achieved is high. She uses this strategy only when she has high risk information to be passed. Whereas, the male sample rates the level as medium. The male sample uses this often in his Facebook statuses and hence he rates the efficacy of this strategy as medium.
Female sample tells the researchers that she uses this strategy when she is under a major threat like a serious case of cyber bullying. Dr. Sheela tells the researchers about a case of a young girl who used such a code to get to people through Facebook to stop cyber bullying against her. She used a play with alphabets to get to the police. She couldn’t come out directly due to personal reasons. She used this strategy to reach out to her helpers, but was able to keep her bully in the dark. Male sample, whereas, uses this quite often. This, he tells the researchers, is due to the presence of nightmare friends on his friends list. Nightmare friends are his relatives who are part of his friend list in the social media. He uses code when he needs to update his friends, without the knowledge of the relatives or elders who are present in his network. He uses a system of codes that do not seem to make any sense to his relatives but is capable of informing his friends.
The perceived efficacy of this strategy is different for female and male. Female regards this as a fool proof way of hiding things well and rates it very high. But male rates it as medium, because he uses it often.
For example- *sigh* I had a bad day. Did the inevitable and the reason? That’s- “1{19}81” *sigh*
The coded word is the name of the person’s girl friend. A status update after a breakup.
Well Known Songs and dialogues:
This is a strategy wherein the youngsters use well known song lyrics as well as dialogues to communicate their feelings. This is a very easy and normal way of conveying one’s feelings.
This strategy is used by males in large numbers. Males use the dialogues for the most part of it. Females use it with song lyrics too. Males use it to pep up their profiles and as well as to invite the attention of their peers.
The privacy level achieved through this strategy is very low, according to females. Females say that the feelings of the song conveys one’s feelings and hence when there is something that one may want to convey to a very large group and does not risk others overhearing it, one can carry on using the strategy.
The reason for using it is stated by subjects as a need to pep up their profiles and peer pressure. Peer pressure plays an important role as it makes people go on in one way alone. Dr.Sheela tells us that the peer pressure forces youngsters to involve in strategies that they would otherwise never employ.
The perceived efficacy of this strategy is very low. It is used to garner likes and comments on statuses rather than hide things from certain people. The Perceived efficacy is very low for this strategy, as it does not really fulfil the function of a strategy.
For example- <3Hi Malini, Im Krishnan, Naan itha solliyea aganum, Nee avloalagu…!!! Best proposal scene ever in Tamil Film Industry!!!!!<3
This is a status update by a girl who was proposed by her boyfriend on Valentine’s Day.
Ahaan vadapochee!!!
This is a status uploaded by a guy who had a bad job interview that day.
Acronyms:
They are the ones that are used to cut short a message so that they do not give out their full meanings. Acronyms have multiple meanings depending on the context in which they are used. They are usually used by everyone and cannot be called a separate strategy. The psychologist Dr.Sheela says that much like alternate words, acronyms too has the property wherein people can thoroughly misunderstand the context. Alternate words can carry their meaning forward in one way or the other but acronyms, when used can be understood only when the other user too knows the word, if not the strategy can backfire very badly. Cyber expert Dr. Vinod Bhattathirippad says that the strategy cannot be used due to the ambiguity it instills in its end users.
For example the acronym B2B can be called as Back to back but the colloquial meaning is Busy, too busy. One who doesn’t know this can misunderstand the context as well as the message badly.