The action of spying through social networks is known as stalking.
The concept of stalkear derives from to stalk , a notion in the English language that refers to " stalking ." Stalking is a neologism that emerged in the field of social networks to name the action that a person performs when reviewing the content published by another user.
Whoever stalks, therefore, enters the profiles or pages that an individual has on social networks such as Facebook , Twitter or Instagram , with the aim of knowing what they are publishing. Generally, the person who engages in stalking does not make known what they are doing, although in some cases they do make their stalking known to intimidate the other.
What leads to stalking
Various reasons can motivate a stalker. Sometimes the reason is nothing more than simple curiosity : someone enjoys knowing, out of curiosity or as a hobby, what another person uploads to social networks. This way you can spend several hours looking at your photos, videos and messages .
The action of stalking also usually occurs when, after a romantic breakup, one of the people who formed the couple tries to be aware of what their ex-boyfriend or husband is doing. In this context, the practice of stalking can be considered intimidating or aggressive.
It should be noted that the stalker can spy on other people to obtain data that will later allow him to carry out a crime . By stalking someone you can discover if they are traveling and have left their house alone or if they got cash from selling a used car, for example. This information is sensitive and can be used by a criminal.
Stalking can be a resource to commit a crime.
The importance of preventing
As happens in many other cases, both in the field of networks and in "real life", for a stalker to exist, the other party must also exist, not only in the role of victim but also as someone who has not taken the necessary steps. necessary precautions to protect your own privacy from those with whom you do not have a relationship. For this reason, it is important to act before this threat appears, to prevent it as much as possible.
Returning to one of the examples mentioned in a previous paragraph, a stalker can be "simply" someone with whom the victim used to have a romantic relationship, that is, an ex-boyfriend or an ex-girlfriend, among other possibilities. This tells us that in a case like this the criminal has a lot of personal information about the other person even before beginning his stalking , and this should be a point to take into account for prevention .
When we end a very close relationship with someone and the breakup is not easy for the other person, it is recommended to set a series of boundaries so that both parties can heal and rebuild their lives. Depending on the case, it is not bad to cut off contact through social networks to prevent curiosity from awakening an obsession in the other that leads them to chase us every day and talk secretly with our friends and family.
Stalking, a behavior close to obsession
Stalking is not very different from other types of obsessive behaviors, in that it also shows that the subject feels great dissatisfaction with his or her own life and is not able to resolve it.
This does not give him the right to bother others, but it also does not make him "bad by nature", if this could exist; For this reason, if we know that one of our acquaintances has a certain tendency to frequent other people's accounts, we should talk to them and try to help them, but also protect our privacy so that neither of us is harmed.