We can find the location of loved ones almost instantly. We don't even need to contact them to find out where they are. You can look up the location of their phone using GPS. We watch any TV show we have subscription for in almost any location we have internet access. We can talk face to face even when we are thousands of miles apart using video conferencing. We find people we haven't seen in years with a simple search on Social Media and reconnect just as quickly with a simple message.
These benefits are truly an improvement on the way things were, but in our rush to use these new advantages a lot of people adopted technologies without fully understanding how being constantly connected presents a danger.
We need to take the same steps to stay safe in the cyberspace as we would in the real world. You wouldn't tell strangers your deepest secrets usually, but setting your Social Media profile to public will do just that. A little information is all a threat actor needs to do a lot of damage.
There was once a time when a threat actor needed to be reasonably close to you to cause you harm, unfortunately, those days are also gone. You can be robbed by someone sitting in a chair halfway around the world. You wouldn't know until it is too late. The damage is not limited to the cash in your pockets either. A digital thief can potentially steal everything you have, including your identity.

Blame IP

Let's face it. The IPhone changed everything. The first 2 letters of that device says it all IP. Almost every other device soon followed. The Internet Protocol is the primary protocol responsible for keeping everyone and everything connected. The Internet Protocol is a set of rules that devices use to communicate with each other. Communication is possible as long as both devices adhere to the rules. Because the rules are well known, they can be circumvented. We went from using devices that let us communicate with each other to devices that keep us connected to the internet. IP is very efficient at what it does. It establishes the connection and makes sure the message gets delivered. IP does not care if the person receiving the message is authorized to do so, it only cares that the message is delivered.
In many ways the IP protocol is like a postal worker. As long as the mail is delivered to the correct mailbox the job was done correctly. The postal worker is not responsible for making sure that the person retieving the mail from the mailbox is the person that is supposed to do so. Since security is not inherently built into IP communication, it is up to us to change our mindset about how we communicate. We have to lock our own mailbox. The postal worker is not going to do it for us.
Every piece of information coming to and from your device can be captured and read. The only thing a user can do to effectively limit this snooping is encrypt their transmissions. Encrypting is the process of scrambling data so that it is unreadable without the correct key. When data is encrypted it will be useless to anyone except the person with the correct key. Most modern operating systems offer some form of encryption. If you are not using it now, start immediately. This is your first layer of protection against threat actors.
When using the internet to communicate keep this in mind...

A little about Encryption

The two most common types of encryption algorithms are symmetric and asymmetric.
Symmetric encryption, also known as a shared key or private key algorithm , uses the same key for encryption and decryption. Symmetric key ciphers are considered less expensive to produce and do not take as much computing power to encrypt and decrypt, meaning there is less of delay in decoding the data.
The drawback is that if an unauthorized person gets their hands on the key, they will be able to decrypt any messages and data sent between the parties. As such, the transfer of the shared key needs to be encrypted with a different cryptographic key, leading to a cycle of dependency.
Asymmetric encryption, also known as public-key cryptography, uses two separate keys to encrypt and decrypt data. One is a public key shared among all parties for encryption. Anyone with the public key can then send an encrypted message, but only the holders of the second, private key can decrypt the message.
Asymmetric encryption is more expensive to produce and takes more computing power to decrypt because the public encryption key is often large, between 1,024 and 2,048 bits. Asymmetric encryption is usually not suited for large packets of data.
Encryption is just one thing you can do to keep your cyber self safe. Unless you take the necessary precautions, any internet connected device is just waiting for something to connect to it. If this is an authorized user then great. If it is a threat actor, then bad things can happen. When you are asleep, your device is still up and connected. You know who else is still up and trying to connect? The bad guys, that's who.