When I was in high school, something happened that forever changed the way I view social media and digital privacy. It wasn’t a big, dramatic event, but it was unsettling enough to make me realize how vulnerable we all are in the digital world. One of my classmates, a boy I didn’t know very well, became curious about me. He thought I was the most attractive girl in our class, but instead of just trying to get to know me in person, he took a different path—one that left me feeling exposed and creeped out.
At the time, I used different usernames across various social media platforms, thinking that this would keep my profiles more private. I didn’t use my real name anywhere, so I thought I was being careful. However, there was one piece of information that I hadn’t thought much about: my phone number. Like most people, I had used the same phone number when registering for many of my accounts. What I didn’t realize was that this phone number, which felt so personal and secure, could be used to find me across different platforms.
That’s exactly what happened. Through the contact-syncing feature that many social media platforms offer, this boy was able to find me on multiple apps just because my phone number was linked to my accounts. Platforms like Weibo, eager to help people “connect,” had suggested my account to him, despite the fact that I had kept my usernames and profiles separate. Once he found me, he was able to see more than I was comfortable sharing. Even though I had been careful with my usernames, the use of the same phone number across platforms had made it possible for him to piece together my digital footprint.
I didn’t realize what was happening until a friend told me. He had overheard him talking with his friends about how he found all of my profiles and was snooping through my online activity. He knew about my photos, posts, and even the music I liked on my NetEase Cloud Music account—an account I had never shared with anyone. The fact that someone had been watching and gathering information about me without my knowledge was deeply unsettling. It wasn’t just curiosity anymore; it was stalking.
Afterward, I became more cautious about what I shared and where. I learned to separate my accounts more carefully and to avoid linking them through something as simple as a phone number. But even with all the precautions in place, the digital world isn’t always a safe space. It’s designed for curiosity and growth, but when these values are unchecked, they can lead to the kind of invasion I experienced.
Ironically, this reflection also made me think about my own behavior online. While I had been a victim of digital stalking, I had also engaged in similar behavior. Sometimes, when I came across profiles of people whose beliefs I found offensive—like extremists, racists, misogynists, or anti-LGBTQ individuals—I would find myself stalking them in return. I would dig into their profiles, hoping to understand their perspective but mostly just looking for ways to criticize them. If their profile information was public, I’d use that as ammunition. And if there wasn’t much to go on, I’d resort to insults based on whatever I could infer, sometimes even targeting things as arbitrary as their IP addresses.
In reflecting on both my experience and my actions, I’ve come to realize that the line between curiosity and invasion is thinner than I once thought. When we browse through someone’s profile without their knowledge, even if it’s just to satisfy our own curiosity or to challenge their views, we’re engaging in a kind of digital stalking. While my intentions might have felt justified at the time—after all, I was targeting people with harmful beliefs—I now see that this behavior mirrors the very thing I had been so upset about.
So, where does that leave us? In a world where curiosity drives much of our digital interactions, how do we draw the line between healthy engagement and harmful intrusion? How do we balance our desire to explore and learn with the need to respect others’ privacy? It’s a difficult question, but one we all need to consider as we continue navigating this ever-connected, ever-exposing digital world.
You indeed point to some difficult questions. The only solution I see, and this is a bit of a cliché, is to educate people about this. I think we can only create more awareness about this and then it is up to the people themselves how to act on this. This applies to both the people who stalk and that this is wrong and the people who are being stalked and what they can do about it.
Your post reminded me of how vulnerable, yet dependent we are on the digital world. The questions raised at the end made me wonder if it would be possible for humanity to change and, therefore grant other people their online privacy. The online sphere is a relatively new phenomenon, so we’re still trying to find a healthy balance indeed.
How accessible our online presences are always manages to scare me. While your examples might be a lot more close to home for some, it’s also important to keep into account how much information can be hidden in stuff you have forgotten. Think about a forgotten Facebook account you might have – that can immediately give away your place of birth and family. Dive even deeper and your own family members can become a weapon against your privacy.
Quite frankly, I don’t see a way how we can ever be “freed” and live in a more private world again without getting an entirely new identity, even if its a false one. We’re kind of all at the mercy of the behaviors of others, either we need to shield ourselves completely from them or we have to set clear boundaries, the latter of which seeming like nothing more than a dream in this interconnected world.