This chapter made me think long and hard about what technology is doing to us these days. Yes, it is making things a whole lot easier (I can pay all of my bills online, have conversations with people that live on other continents, and download my favorite sporting events that I might have missed) but it is also taking away from the anonymity that I enjoy. Everywhere you look online it's user name this and password that. This chapter pointed out that, no matter what you do online, people can track your movements and save them into any database that they choose and call it "marketing". I feel that it is more like spying. When the Patriot Act was implemented, I was shocked because, in theory, the government could literally follow your every move with no repercussions. Very scary stuff.
The main point that this chapter was trying to make was that as much as technology is aiding in the well being of humans, it is also taking away from our privacy with every click of the mouse. There is no where that you can hide from it either. Companies are sending automated messages for telemarketing from other countries and calling you from those countries. It is pretty scary to think that people will be able to track who calls you the most and then mask the caller ID to show that a certain person is calling you when it is in fact someone completely different. I am very weary about giving my information out over the internet and I still know that I should be less cavalier in the way I give out information.
2 comments:
It is a little frightening how technology helps people (beit companies, government or con artists) track your every move. I am still hesitant about giving information online as well and have only used a handful of websites to make purchases. I know that even then taking those precautions are not foolproof. I guess we can just go with the flow of technology but still be conscious about the reprecussions of making information easier to handle.
You are right, it does aid but it also takes away at the same time. Granted, a lot of it is our own fault as consumers and have no one to blame but ourselves. We want everything at the click of a button yet realize at the same time we are basically eroding our own privacy. I would imagine that every time we buy something online we are stored in yet another database.
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