What if a stranger stopped you on the street and asked you about your dog?

Nov 19, 2013 18:21 GMT  ·  By

The Internet can be a fun place to spend time on, but too much time online can eventually turn things awkward, especially if you’re the type to share a lot of information about yourself.

In a new social media experiment, American comedian Jack Vale took to the streets of California with his smartphone, hoping to point out just how much information you can find out about random people, especially strangers that may be sitting across the room from you.

The experiment had Vale searching for social media users nearby who were posting messages. He got their names, personal information, and various other details about them, like what dog they had and what nickname they had for the pup.

Understandably, social media users quickly get freaked out as this stranger tells them about their lives, wishes them Happy Birthday, or asks them about some holiday they took.

While Vale may have done this as a simple experiment, it doesn’t mean that others will do the same and that they won’t cross a lot of boundaries. The effort, however, stresses just how important those privacy settings are in a social network.

Perhaps the most concerning feature that’s being pointed at in this video is the one that shares your location along with a post.

When it comes to Twitter, that can easily be fixed by making sure the “Add a location to my Tweets” is disabled. Making posts private on Instagram might also be a good idea, while avoiding to check in with Facebook could also help.

Furthermore, it’s also possible to fix the location issues straight from the phone by disabling Location Services on iPhones and Google location services and GPS satellite on Android smartphones.

Of course, the latter solution could make it more difficult to take advantage of map apps and other tools, but you can just turn them back on when needed.