Online exhibitionism is growing at an alarming rate, with more and more people getting bolder in posting photos and video clips via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

The trend of uploading personal pictures better kept in private is an indication that the culture of privacy has indeed changed considerably.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg gave a fitting explanation to this phenomenon during the Web 2.0 Summit.

"Of sociological interest here is that when people are given tools to share information about themselves online, they do, often in intimate detail," he said. "The massive popularity of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook highlight this trend, where millions of users display themselves in what might seem like unnecessary detail. Sites like Flickr and YouTube are updated endlessly with photos and videos illuminating users' everyday lives."

The truth is people's reliance and at times, addiction to the Internet is partly responsible for this regrettable development.

It is not only in the U.S. and other highly developed nations that online exhibitionism is growing to a disturbing proportion.

Even in Africa, information from ArtMatters.Info said that "Young women and teenagers have taken exhibitionism a notch higher with the help of the ever-improving technology. With social networking sites such as Facebook, Flickr and MySpace, teenagers are exposing their nakedness to the world."

Photographs of nude people have become a form of self expression in social networking sites and teenagers appear to be mindless of the perils that their actions create.

Stricter rules may be needed and William Herbert of the New York Public Employment Relations Board may be right in stating that "Despite the general reluctance to bare all through old media, new communicative technologies are leading, if not encouraging, individuals to engage in an unprecedented degree of exhibitionism about their personal lives, thoughts and activities to a virtual worldwide audience."

Perhaps, it is about time that laws are implemented to curb if not totally prevent voyeurism and exhibitionism in the internet.