Looking Myself Up on Google

            My first concern upon finding my name on zabasearch.com was that for a small fee, one could get a great deal of information about my life. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s not that difficult to find this information even if it wasn’t available on the Internet. It’s all free, and open access, information. The only difference is that on zabasearch.com it is all comprised in one place, whereas one would usually have to find the information in many different places (White Pages, district court dockets, birth announcements, etc.). Very little comes up about me when I search my name in Google; my Google+ page, an article about making Dean’s List, and my Linked In profile are just about the only links. Since I think I may be the only Faith-Anne Phoebe in the US (at least the only one that has any sort of online presence) it is sort of unnerving; I can’t take comfort in the fact that there are hundreds of other Faith-Anne Phoebes that these links could be about, and someone searching the name could easily find quite a bit of information about me.

        

         My ‘aha’ moment of the week came while reading the textbook. One simple phrase made so much sense as soon as I read it: “There was no golden age of privacy” (Brin 70). I think that sums up so much of what we have been studying already, and will continue to study for the rest of the course. So often, I hear people reference 'Big Brother' when talking about the state of our current society and privacy issues. But the textbook references the bizarre and intrusive questions asked by the census bureau not all that long ago; how is that any better than being able to find my old addresses for the price of $14.95 on a random website?

           

         I feel the same way about my privacy that I have already seen referenced a few times in the textbook: I’m boring. There is nothing interesting or strange about me, so what do I care if a database in a nameless warehouse keeps track of my purchases at the local grocery store? At worst, it will track that I’ve bought a product that might be deemed embarrassing—and I’m pretty much past the point in my life that a grocery store purchase contains something of embarrassment. At best, I get coupons tailored to my shopping habits. There was a point in my life where I feared for my privacy. But the more I think about it, the less I worry. Brin made many predictions that have actually come to fruition (and I’m only on chapter 5, so I can only assume there will be more to come), and they aren’t nearly as bad as sensationalism had made them out to be. I would actually say the more I learn in the course, the less nervous I am about privacy; I suppose it’s because the more I learn, the more I understand how unfounded that fear can be. We need to be held accountable for our lives and choices; we live in a connected society that becomes more connected each day. I think it can be good that information is more readily accessible, to a point; if everyday citizens see that a more open society isn’t a bad thing, then we can hold the ‘secretive’ areas of our society (banks, government) more accountable for their actions and decisions. 

Week 3

For as long as the Internet has been used for social purposes, I've been a part of it. From instant messaging in the earlier days, to Myspace in the first years of social media, I've had some place in the social aspect of Internet life. I've seen the limits of information policy, no matter how trivial it seemed (Myspace groups were fairly limited to the topic of the group, and if I recall correctly, swear words were either not permitted or severely frowned upon). Is this a bad thing? Probably not. It does limit the freedom of what one could do, but there were always options around it. Just as there are options today. No longer a Myspace society, we now content ourselves with Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit. These social media sites are far more lax with their profanity policies, but there are still repercussions toward information that others do not want to see, or do not think is appropriate. Nudity on Facebook? Forget it. Want to talk positively about Christianity? Don't do it in the atheism section of Reddit. Am I saying that I do not think the Internet is a "supremely open and connecting system"? Quite the opposite. But just like the real world, there is a time and a place for everything. Passions and differences are celebrated on the Internet, far more than they are in our everyday lives.

I do, however, wonder if 'the age of knowledge' is detrimental to our society or a betterment. When you can find a niche space on the Internet for everything, you can start to feel self-important. I don't think it creates empathy, I think it hinders it. When all you see or know about is what you want to see or know about, there is a vast world of knowledge you aren't getting, and a large group of people outside of your bubble with different stories, and passions, that you aren't getting a chance to understand. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be different, or wanting to celebrate it. What is wrong, is to choose to extract oneself from situations in which diversity is the rule, not the exception. I do think the Internet can do that, and it does end up creating limitations where there are supposed to be none.

While reading "Wasting Time is New Divide in Digital Era" I thought of my job at the local public library, and the socioeconomic status of those people who use the computers. People who come to the library for computer use generally cannot afford to have a personal computer in their home; or, they may own a computer but lack Internet access. The article makes a good point about technology becoming a commodity for wasting time. How often do we find ourselves watching a television show while simultaneously surfing the Internet? It's not a good thing, to waste time. Especially with how much time we are wasting. Do I think it's a good idea to provide computer/Internet access to every person? Well, that's a tough question. Most kids actually need computer and Internet access for homework these days. But is it necessary? Should a student be penalized for not having those things? I'm conflicted with that argument, if only for the fact that I see how much time I waste, and I don't think it's a good thing, nor do I wish for others to waste as much time as I know I do. I'm hoping the time wasting is a phase, like technology will go through. But who knows....

TED Talk and Chapter 1

            As I watched the TED Talk and read the first chapter of our textbook, I was struck by how much of the information in both of those resources was so relevant. It is strange to see how right Kevin Kelly has been in predicting what the next 5000 days might hold for the Web and our world in general. What I found most interesting, however, is how optimistic he was about the coming changes. He didn’t see an information shift as a problematic endeavor; it seemed that he saw it as an opportunity to move forward and become more connected with one another. So often we think about more sharing, and less privacy, as an invasion of our civil liberties. We don’t want Big Brother taking away our right to live our lives in private, yet we don’t know how to stop this path we are on toward a more open society. Our obsession with things like social media have created a need for the burden of over-sharing, yet we complain that we would not like our business being accessible for anyone who wishes to find it. I am guilty of this, and I'll admit it. I’m a huge Instagram fan, and I love to tag myself and my friends at various places on Facebook. But when I Google my name and find an article about being on the Dean’s List in college…well, it makes me more than a little uncomfortable. I guess my problem with Kevin Kelly’s optimism toward an open information society is that some of that information, I did not choose to share. If I want to create a page that lists all of my past medical records, I’m obviously okay with people looking for the information. But if someone I do not know, with access to my personal information, puts that information in some open access database without my consent in an effort to form some sort of arbitrarily ‘free’ society (free because we no longer have secrets or things that are kept from anyone who wants the information), I would have a problem with that. The difference is choosing to share.

            This thought brings me back to the textbook, and choosing between the two societies. Of course, when I first read it I chose the society in which I knew I was being watched. It wouldn’t necessarily make me feel better because I would know I had no privacy in the open, but at the very least I wouldn’t feel that my trust was being taken advantage of. Even after reflecting upon the comment on page 25 about trading something for a feeling of security or a little less fear, I would not take the other society over the one where I knew about the cameras. There are times when I feel safer when I know there are cameras; my alma mater was in a city that had a high crime rate and I will not deny that I felt safer walking around campus at night knowing that there were cameras around campus, and call stations if necessary. But if I were told there were no cameras, yet had some lingering suspicions that I was still being watched, I would not feel as good about it.  

            Am I eager to see what the next few years hold for the Web, and technology in general? Yes and no. While I am eager to see the advances our modern society can create (after all, this video was filmed not too long after the first iPhone came out, and think of how far that has advanced since its inception), I am hesitant to give up more than what I have already given. I grew up in a strange time; I had a childhood not dominated by technology the way it is today, yet I am young enough that I pick up technology quickly. I grew up as technology and the Internet advanced, so I understand the value of wanting to reject technological advancements while still having a desire to see what comes next, to look forward to those advancements. The chapters of our textbook are really affirming all the concerns I have heard for advancement and gradual loss of freedom over the past few years; it is very interesting to read about it in a voice that doesn’t know what the years between 1998 and 2014 hold. SO much changed in that small period of time; it’s almost comical at times to read parts of the book and know exactly what predictions came true.