I won’t share payment information on social media. You shouldn’t either.
I am convinced that peer-to-peer payment apps have become essential to my ability to live in New York City. Specifically, Venmo. The free app allows me to send or request money from friends with the click of a button, and then I’m able to easily transfer money from my Venmo account to my bank account.
New York restaurants are notorious for refusing to split checks, and “just Venmo me” has become the go-to response when the bill comes. I use Venmo to pay my roommates for Wi-Fi and utilities, and it has made my life vastly more convenient.
The app also doubles as a social platform. Venmo enables you to sync with your Facebook friends or phone contacts, and similar to a Twitter feed, you can view who your friends are paying, when they are paying them and the message attached to the transaction. You can even “like” or comment on a transaction, similar to Facebook. Venmo is aimed at the millennial generation, and serves as another way to publicly validate each other’s daily activities.
Recently, I realized how unsettling older generations view this type of transparency. I was explaining how to use the app to my mother, and I watched as a wave of disbelief washed over her. “So anyone can see who you’re paying using this thing?” she asked.
An app I viewed as a necessity, she saw as a portal to invasiveness.
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Generation overshare
Growing up in a world dominated by likes and re-tweets, millennials often overshare. I know, because I’m one of them. Take a peek at my social accounts — Facebook, Instagram and Twitter — and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what my daily life looks like.
My followers on social media know who I hang out with, where I go and what I read. Do people really care about all these aspects of my life? I doubt it. Is it intrusive, though? Probably not. Venmo adds a whole other layer to that, in my opinion, and takes social sharing one step too far.
It’s one thing to see the highlight reel of someone’s life on social platforms: pictures that make them smile, articles that interest them and opinions they feel the urge to express. It’s an entirely different thing to see their financial activity, transaction by transaction.
Sometimes I find myself mindlessly scrolling through Venmo, usually after I request or make a payment. And sometimes, what I find surprises me. More times than not, the note accompanying other users’ transactions features emojis or a funny message. “Fee for being your friend,” for example, made me smile.
Other times, though, I actually can see how people live their lives.
Granted, Venmo never makes the dollar amounts of each transaction or account numbers public. But I know where people I haven’t talked to since high school are vacationing for the Fourth of July and who they are going with, based solely on their Venmo activity. I know that “Amanda” paid “Jessica” for sushi on Tuesday, and I know “Tyler” paid his rent on Sunday. I’ve seen friends feel left out based on transactions between other friends, and I’ve seen relationships waver as couples use Venmo to keep an eye on their partner.
Is that creepy? Yeah. It is.
Take back your privacy
I don’t think Venmo, which did not immediately make a representative available for comment, is the culprit. The app gives you the option to make a transaction either “private” or “public,” but at this point — with our lives spewed all over the internet — most millennials don’t think twice about the visibility of their transactions. But the way you live your life from a financial standpoint should be kept private.
The way you choose to budget and spend your money is a very personal decision. It reflects what your priorities are, and what you value most in life.
Yes, it can be good to talk to friends and family about money every now and then, but would you post your transaction history for all your Facebook friends to see? That’s essentially what Venmo allows you to do.
And, if you’re constantly seeing other Venmo users spending money every night on restaurants or bar tabs, it can be easy to convince yourself that you deserve to be spending your money on those things, too. In reality, you don’t know how much they are spending, or what their financial situation is. With spending activity made public to all your Facebook friends who are also using the app, it leaves room for judgment and can even be a form of peer pressure.
Our lives are public enough. We are already bombarded with pictures, status updates and tweets detailing how our friends are living. I want to take back some privacy.
From now on, all of my Venmo transactions will be kept private, and I urge you to do the same. Resist the temptation to scroll through other users’ spending activity, and keep focused on how you spend your money, not how everyone else is spending theirs.
