For years now, social networking websites have been criticized for their lack of privacy and with backlash, comes acceptance.

Facebook tells people too much information, which you volunteer, but that is a whole other topic. Twitter is constantly updating followers about what you are doing and where you are doing it. Both networks became a little creepier when they enabled GPS coordinates from which you are posting and tweeting. But even with that said, people have embraced the GPS location sharing. A site such as Foursquare is solely based on the location and incredibly successful.

So, there is obviously a love-hate relationship with social networking. There is obviously a twisted concept of privacy in our culture. Both issues are based on the responsibility of the parties involved. Some people don’t care what they share; others care too much.

With that said, the new mobile photo application, Color, for those with nifty iPhone and Android phones, is pushing the limits of social networking and privacy a little further.

 The idea of Color is based on people in public places with Smartphones. The GPS, along with a bunch of cool things you didn’t know were possible, such as using the camera to determine lighting and the microphone to pick up noise, the device “connects” you with people around you. Connection is used in the loosest form possible here; you are not actually following them, friending them or any of that real relationship kind of stuff. The connection is purely digital. When you step out of the 100-foot radius of them, your connection is over. While within the radius though, your connection is possibly one of the most personal, as Color shares the photographs stored on the phone.

Public is the default for Color.

Think about the kid sitting next to you looking at your photos on their phone right now. It is scary to think what you could see. 

Think about showing the pictures on your personal password-protected phone with your parents – it could end very badly.

On top of that, because you are not actually friends with these people, there is no way to regulate who sees what. Friend lists cannot be created to make sure some pictures are available to everyone and some only to a limited group, like the photo privacy settings currently in use on Facebook.

Privacy is practically thrown out the window with this application, and again, like I said, some people could not care less about what other people know about them. This application would be for people in this category but even then, things can get creepy and weird.

As most college students do, living in the dorms or in apartments would quite possibly allow you to spy on the people down the hall or next door without ever speaking to them. I totally understand people who live on Facebook and constantly creep around from profile to profile, but at least there is some sort of regulation and protection.

Color is fundamentally encouraging voyeurism. There are no rules. You don’t know who is looking at you. Isn’t this how murder mysteries start?

Maybe I’m exaggerating, but downloading the application would be essentially like constantly looking through the peephole in the wall at your neighbor. But then think how twisted things just got when your neighbor actively notices the peephole is there and does nothing about it.

First off, why would anyone be comfortable with that? Secondly, this could create a whole new culture of everything Sut Jhally has ever taught in his online classes about the so-called “gaze.” (If you haven’t taken Sut Jhally’s class, look into it.)

Back to the peepshow analogy again: People now know others are watching them. Everyone engaged in this application would be putting on a show.

Color would be adding to this show culture that somewhat exists on Facebook, where people that want all the best pictures to convince others that they do cool awesome things and look pretty all the time.

Has anyone thought about the consequences of this application? Your identity can be stolen by putting too much information up on your Facebook page. You can die from sharing your location and personal photos with random strangers around you. This is not hard, people.

Amanda Joinson is a Collegian columnist. She can be reached at [email protected].