does not exist without technology, and this melding of two realities has significantly decreased the human right to privacy. To exist within the digital age, we must create a digital footprint. This entails creating accounts, posting, following, pictures, videos, etc. My digital footprint is made mostly of social media posts and academic/professional commitments. However, if you search my name up on the internet, you will find numerous random things from my life over the years.
A Denver post article from my kindergarten year when my elementary school started archery courses in P.E, when I won a poetry contest for Beaver Creek, CO, the medical device I wore to fix a chest deformity at 10, my LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram posts, quotes from High Point's page, etc. From a quick Google search, I can find my full name, where I live, every school I have attended, the full names of my immediate family, and more. The amount of information that is free to any person with access to the internet is relatively terrifying.
Juan Enriquez's TEDTalk, titled "Your Online Life, Permanent as a Tattoo," focuses on the permanency of our online presence. He comparison of digital footprint to an ink tattoo illustrates just how revealing the internet can be. He highlights the ultimate visibility that online presence provides. Enriquez mentions the website face.com, which "had about 18 billion faces" in the portal, and was recently sold to Facebook.
Face recognition technology is just one of the factors of the internet that causes the phrase "your phone is listening to you," because so much of what we see in advertisements and suggested content stems from our face and our online history. I have been seeing more and more ads for products and shopping websites that I was merely discussing with a friend, not entering into a Google search bar. I especially see suggested, AI generated content from the TikTok algorithm that my phone would have "heard" me talking about, or noted that I was searching something online. If I play my workout playlist on Spotify, my TikTok "for you" page will be full of videos depicting workout routines and programs.
After watching these videos, I feel frustrated in technology and our necessity of online presence. Almost everything I do for school is online. I have applied for every job and internship in my life online, and most have had either an online application or video interview before going in person. I communicate to my friends and family on my phone and through social media. Not having any sort of online presence in this day and age is equivalent to being a nomad or monk. As Generation Z, it is impossible to not have some kind of account, whether it's social media, LinkedIn, Indeed, etc. It is ironic that what is necessary to have a life and succeed is also what is such a danger to us. Activity online is like living in a house without curtains or blinds; the complete lack of privacy from both online conglomerations and the government is not safe, and not regulated effectively. The TikTok ban is one of the first things the US government has done to try and eliminate the detriment of social media, but even this has been met with immense controversy, and may not even be the right step in the direction to protecting privacy. It is unfortunate that "going off the grid" is not more normalized.
Catherine Crump's TEDTalk highlights another violation of privacy, this time in the hands of the US government. Automatic License Plate Readers are a device that track plates that pass the scanner and organizes the information into an accessible list, so that officers can cross-reference during an investigation to find a certain vehicle's path. However, Crump points out that recently, law enforcement has been using the readers to compile "mass quantities of data" containing every car's plate. The government has databases consisting of millions of dates, times and photos depicting cars that pass these Automatic License Plate Readers. This is unnerving because as we, Americans, go about our daily lives, we are ultimately being tracked by the government. Technology like this is the reason that the idea of personal privacy is becoming obsolete.
After watching these videos, I feel frustrated in technology and our necessity of online presence. Almost everything I do for school is online. I have applied for every job and internship in my life online, and most have had either an online application or video interview before going in person. I communicate to my friends and family on my phone and through social media. Not having any sort of online presence in this day and age is equivalent to being a nomad or monk. As Generation Z, it is impossible to not have some kind of account, whether it's social media, LinkedIn, Indeed, etc. It is ironic that what is necessary to have a life and succeed is also what is such a danger to us. Activity online is like living in a house without curtains or blinds; the complete lack of privacy from both online conglomerations and the government is not safe, and not regulated effectively. The TikTok ban is one of the first things the US government has done to try and eliminate the detriment of social media, but even this has been met with immense controversy, and may not even be the right step in the direction to protecting privacy. It is unfortunate that "going off the grid" is not more normalized.
No comments:
Post a Comment