In his TED Talk “What will a future without secrets look like?”, Alessandro Acquisti discusses the lack of privacy that we have today due to the internet and Big Data. Acquisti points out, “When someone tells you, “People don’t care about privacy,” consider whether the game has been designed and rigged so that they cannot care about privacy”. I believe that Acquisti is making a very good point here. We almost never know what is included in the Terms & Conditions which we agree to on every internet web page. Though the site is usually telling you what they are using your information for data for, there is no way to pick and choose which parts of the Terms & Conditions you are okay with, and which go too far. Aquisti acknowledges how little this transparency does for the user, especially because the sites still request an egregious amount of information. For high school teens trying to fit in with their peers, they will mindlessly agree to anything that allows them to interact with their peers online. This poses the question of just how much personal information users will unknowingly agree to share. This is extremely concerning because when we check boxes to agree to giving up our information, there is no one to blame but ourselves. Internet sites and Big Data collectors have coerced the public into giving them everything they think they need to improve society.
Month: March 2018
8:00 am: I’m ringing.
8:01 am: I’m snoozed.
8:05 am: I’m ringing.
8:06 am: I’m snoozed.
8:10 am: I’m ringing.
8:11 am: I’m snoozed.
8:12 am: Wow she’s finally awake! …Oh wait she’s asleep again.
8:15 am: She’s awake!! Here comes the gooey “Good Morning” text to her boyfriend even though we saw him 6 hours ago.
9:00 am: How many times do you have to check the weather before you choose an outfit, Tori? GO TO BREAKFAST!
9:29 am: You have checked the time 11 times within the last 4 minutes. And yes, you’re still almost late for class. I thought this was what the 4 alarms were for this morning! Maybe you should try going to bed earlier instead of scrolling through Twitter watching funny videos until 2 am.
11:00 am: If I had a dollar for every time you check your grades on Blackboard, I would be an iPhoneX.
12:00 pm: I really appreciate the hummus you had on your fingers from your sandwich at lunch getting all over my screen. Thanks, girl. This is just what we wanted after chemistry class, which, by the way, you checked Blackboard twice during. Your grades have not changed!
1:00 pm: Now it’s time for her daily email responses. Why do you have so many? You must be important or something… no, you’re definitely not. This email is to your best friend.
3:45 pm: Why do you feel the need to take a picture of the ocean every other day? It looks the same as the last picture you took.
4:00 pm: I don’t think Vans.com is helping you study for your Psych exam, Tori. Also, my battery is low.
4:56 pm: Hey, that new Facebook profile picture of you and Will is adorable, but my battery is dangerously low. That doesn’t mean use me as a calculator- charge me! I have so many Instagram notifications for you, but I need a battery to give you them.
5:00 pm: And… I’m dead. Goodnight world.
5:01 pm: Oh, so now you scurry for a charger. Funny how that works. Where were you ten minutes ago?
5:15 pm: Time for dinner and dance practice. She is checking the dinner menu and Dance Team schedule online, which means I’ll be in her bag on Do Not Disturb for the next couple hours.
8:10 pm: Hey, you’re out of dance! Practice was great, and she is posting a Finsta about how good it went.
9:00 pm: Girl, you have way too many Safari tabs open on here. When’s the last time you actually watched this competition video you have open? Oh, right. May 1, 2017. Time to let it go!! You can just Google it later if you want to see it. We all know you Google dance videos, like, 15 times a day.
10:00 pm: I’m ringing. Time for your medicine!
10:14 pm: She is doing homework on the laptop. I guess it’s time for me to go in the bag on Do Not Disturb again.
12:18 am: Time for the dance videos. How many can you possibly watch?! Yes, play games on me- nice and quiet.
12:45 am: Goodnight Tori! See you at 8 am!
I agree with Greenfield’s theory that low self esteem pushes other away on the internet because of my experiences with Facebook and Twitter. When people have low self esteem, it often shows online, where they want to continuously post to show people how their life is going. This gets annoying to other users, which leads them to unfriend or unfollow the person who posts too much. This inherently leads to the person being unfriended or unfollowed by many friends to develop an even lower self esteem, and they will be more likely to post even more because of this.
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