Today I helped my mom to delete one of her friends on facebook after she a had mistakenly sent the person a friend request. Even though my mom did not know this woman, she now had access to all of her information. She could see all of the pictures of this woman’s family and friends as well as all of the conversations on her “wall”. With a click of a button we could find out almost anything about this person. This reminded me of one of the slogans in Huxley’s Brave New World, “everyone belongs to everybody else”. With every new friend we add, we are surrendering our information to someone who may use it in any way they please. Looking at my own friends list, I noticed that there are a good number of people that I do not know. Now, by viewing my profile, these people can see all of my pictures, the know who all of my friends are, they can see what pages I have “liked’, and view posts that friends have put on my “wall”. Anyone can see my age, birthday, what school I attend. My personal information is now theirs, all of my personal details are theirs, my pictures are in their possession. The phrase, “everyone belongs to everybody else” may not apply to our physical world, but this certainly is accurate to describe our virtual world. Slowly, we are being conditioned to believe that putting out our information for the world to see is no big deal, it is only a part of convenience.
When I was younger, my dad would tell me never to give out my email adress or phone number to any website, these were only meant to be used by a few close friends to contact me. Now, only a few years later, I am readily handing out my information with out a second thought. Our personal information is one of our most valuable possesions. Why are we so willing to give this away, and at what point do we draw the line?
We are now willing to give this information away because people don't normally think about the repercussions or how the information can be used against them. Everyone has the mentality in which they believe that nothing bad will happen to them. Also, as technology is rising and becoming a part of everyday life, people are more inclined to trust technology and others that use it.
ReplyDeleteI just read an article that stated that Adam Savage from the show "Mythbusters" took a picture of his car with his Smartphone and posted it on Twitter with the message "Off to work." Just by posting this picture online, Adam gave away his exact location (his home), the time he leaves for work, and the type of car that he drives. This example shows that many people are also unaware that they are giving away so much of their personal information.
Every person draws his or her own line at which they stop giving away personal information. Some people are willing to give away their location, birthday, and career information away to total strangers. Others are more cautious and will give out as little information as possible.
Even though we are constantly warned against giving out too much information over the Internet, personal information still gets handed out easily. As humans, it is our nature to be a little reckless. We can't constantly be 100% responsible and logical the whole entire time. When people give out information that was once so precious, many don't think of the consequences. "Oh, it's just this one time. Nothing will happen." We take our information and the Internet for granted believing what we see on the news can't possibly happen to us.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, many draw the line when something does in fact happen. Many draw the line when the seemingly impossible becomes possible. It is our responsibility to think accordingly when we post something or submit something onto the Internet, making sure that what we wrote wouldn't reveal anything important to us. If we do so, maybe what we thought was to be impossible really wouldn't ever happen.