Lack of Privacy Online

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Fahmida

As the internet gains it’s popularity over the years, it is also gaining more and more users. Most users are not aware of what they do online. The lack of privacy online is increasing especially on social media sites such as Facebook, twitter, instagram, etc. Many users are becoming concerned that most of the things they do online are being monitored and they fear that they may have no privacy while they are online. Now people have gained the opportunity to access any kind of information about anything or anyone with the help of the internet. Internet privacy is an interesting topic because most people ignore how much privacy they have while using the internet until they realize it is too late. Today’s society with so many social media sites such as Facebook include many personal information and that information can be tracked and used by other people without the owner knowing about it, but some may know about it which then becomes a privacy concern for them. Online shopping is another factor to think about because the shopper doesn’t know if their credit card information is safe online. Many people’s credit card info has been stolen by other online users because may be the site they were using was not safe. One way to avoid those problems is to find out if the site they are using is safe or not and if the site is asking for too many personal information, the user should stop using the site. Young people, especially teenagers are less worried about privacy because they don’t really think about the consequences, they just want to have fun with what they do online. Privacy has become a great issue for online users now that personal information is easy to be used by other people.

There are many questions and concerns about online privacy and those questions may include topics such as the users information being kept private only to the user or if the website they are using is safe or not and etc. Many of those questions can be answered by doing some research about it. Since online privacy has become a big issue around the world, many people and journals have written about this issue to inform internet users and people who are interested in learning more about the issue. Some sources that have come across while doing this research were about Facebook privacy, users accepting lack of privacy on the internet, and about privacy vanishing online. According to source, “many employers use Facebook profiles to screen job applicants,” Facebook users can be judged by their profile. The source states that “your inappropriate Facebook profile, posts, and photos could lose you your next job, many employers are using the Facebook profiles of job candidates to filter out weaker applicants based on perception of life style, attitudes and personal appearance.” Facebook is open to many people around the world and users information can be looked at by anyone. based on source titled “One in two users accepts a lack of privacy on internet,” young people generally are less worried about privacy and women are more concerned about protecting their privacy than men. The source also states that young people are more active users. Another source titled “How privacy vanishes online” mentions that “Allessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross reported that they could accurately predict the full, nine digit social security numbers for 8.5 percent of the people born in the united states between 1989 and 2003.” The lack of privacy online is increasing as technology advances.

Annotated Sources:

“Many employers use Facebook profiles to screen job applicants” Inderscience Publishers July 23, 2012 www.sciencedaily.com

This article is about employers judging job seekers based on their online activities. Facebook profiles, posts, photos, their lifestyle, attitudes and personal appearance may be the reasons a person will not be accepted to a job. This article provides the readers with many Facebook privacy information that users may not have known about. It can’t be denied that many people are being judged by their Facebook profile because their profile is basically who they are and what they do unless its a fake profile. Its kind of mind blowing that employers look at people’s social media accounts to make the decision of hiring them or not to hire them. While they do that, they don’t really care about the person’s privacy because the person doesn’t know about it. Most people would agree that if this happened to them, their privacy rights are being violated by unknown people. And this kind of activity would leave the internet users concerned and raise questions weather the internet is safe or not. People that use the internet and people who have social media accounts, should really be careful and mindful of what they do online because they can be judged and misunderstood based on their online activities.

“One in two users accepts a lack of privacy on internet” University of Zurich December 10, 2013 www.sciencedaily.com

This article is about internet usage in general and in Switzerland. Based on the article, study results show that young people are less worried about privacy and in general, women are more concerned about protecting their privacy than men. Its surprising that a million people in Switzerland including aged 14 years or over still don’t surf the web because they are not interested or don’t see any use for it. One question that comes across reading this article is that why are men less concerned about protecting their privacy than women? It may be because women are more likely to be targeted by others such as strangers and there might be other reasons why its that way and why men are less concerned. The internet is used differently by different age groups. Older people use it very differently than young people because they are not used to these advanced technology and the younger generation are more active users and they use it more often. Also young people tend to accept the lack of internet privacy more than older people.

“How privacy vanishes online” The New York Times Steve Lohr march 16, 2010 www.nytimes.com

In this article, Steve Lohr writes about how privacy is slowly vanishing online. He also writes that a person doesn’t have to give someone their social security number and e- mail address to give away their personal information because those are not the only personal information about a person. Those that use the internet, especially social media sites have all sorts of their personal information open to others. Not only that, the internet can collect a person’s information and create a picture of a person’s identity and even their social security number which may seem impossible but is possible. The article says that “you may not disclose personal information, but your friends and colleagues may do it for you, referring to your school, or employer, gender, location, and interests.” This happens to many people and it leads to many unwanted situations like break up between friendship and more. People don’t realize that they put so many personal information online unless they do it purposely. In the modern world today there are many sites that people use and give their information to and don’t realize how their privacy is being invaded by others.

Research proposal: Negative Effects of Technology

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Fahmida

Technology has become a part of everyone’s life one way or another. As technology advances overtime, it effects almost everyone’s lives. Like other aspects in life, technology also has it’s positives and negatives. It is very important for technology users to know if they are benefiting from technology or is technology effecting them negatively. There are many benefits of technology such as using the phone or the internet to stay connected with others, technology makes it faster and easier to do things, but most people forget about the disadvantages of technology. Technology has a big impact on the mental, physical, social and environmental health, which can get worse if one doesn’t take caution about their use of technology. Many negative health effects of technology include, obesity, depression, stress, lack of sleep/bad sleeping habits, body pain and more. Other effects that technology has on the society also include poor writing skills, lack of social skills, lack of privacy, lack of social bonds, lack of empathy/ more violence, addiction, constant distraction, short attention span, increased bullying, and isolation from others.

The society cannot deny the benefits of technology, because there is some way everyone is benefited by it, but technology also has it’s negative sides. It can’t be all good. In this modern world, technology is necessary almost everywhere. Many people ignore the effects that technology has on their lives because its difficult to do many things without technology. According to the research, many people’s health is being effected by technology because they are constantly using technology like addiction towards it which increases their depression and stress rate. Obesity can also occur because of technology due to the fact that they spend more time with games,videos, the internet, phone, etc, rather than being active or exercising. Sitting and continually looking down at devices can cause very bad pain throughout the body especially the neck and head. Technology can isolate a person from many things since they are not aware of their surroundings. The lack of many areas will begin such as their writing skills, social skills, social bonds and attention span, because they are doing everything online and not interacting with people face- to- face. Technology can be very distracting because it provides people with many different interests. The lack of privacy is also another negative effect of technology because online, especially social media sites have little privacy, and a person can get other’s information and do anything with it. Technology can also be blamed for the increase in violence, because people are constantly seeing violent scenes in video games, the internet, T.V, etc, and think its OK to be violent which cause people to lose empathy for society.

Essay 2; Feed pre-draft

Posted on March 22, 2014 by Fahmida

M. T. Anderson’s Feed is about a group of teenage friends, that have the feed installed in their heads. The feed is basically like the internet, which allows them to purchase, chat, watch shows and do many other things in an instance. Having the feed in their head made it very convenient for them to be able to do those things anytime, anywhere. Titus is the narrator as well as the main character and his friends are; Violet, Link, Marty, Quendy and Calista. Titus and Violet start a relationship which lasted a few months, but eventually ended a few days before she died. The group of friends try to keep themselves entertained with the feed, different types of games, visiting places, but even with all that entertainment, boredom also comes across. Entertainment can keep people happy and motivated, but when it gets to the extremes, it can change everything around.

Slumberland

Posted on March 21, 2014 by Fahmida

In part 4 of Feed by M. T. Anderson, violet was brought to the hospital by Titus due to her malfunction getting worse. Her father comes to see her while Titus is still in the hospital. Violet’s frequent malfunctioning has made her father and Titus very worried. They take her home soon. Titus goes to her house the next day and she chats him that she wants to do so many things in life. she also tells him that she lost 1 year of her memory from her feed. she can’t recall what happened before she got the feed. later Violet messages Titus a list of things she wants to do before she dies and labels it, “Definitive list of things I want to do” (229). Violet begins messaging him a lot, but Titus starts to avoid her messages, he even deletes some of them. She wants to go to the mountains, so she persuades Titus to go with her. They stay in a hotel, Violet gets romantic with him, but Titus can’t accept that because she was going to die. After arguing, Titus decides to break up with her and they leave home. Titus has started to date Quendy after that. A few months later, during summertime, he feels something is wrong so he visits Violet and sees her in bed, she’s bald, she can’t talk, move, or do anything. Violet’s father blames Titus for her condition. Titus couldn’t bare to hear that so he left, but he does come to see her again in a couple of days and unfortunately she dies.

Violet’s early death was mostly because of the feed. She probably should’ve never gotten it because it was kind of late for her. She got her’s when she was seven and other people got it when they were babies. Her father should’ve known not to get her an old or perhaps cheap model of feed. Now they are facing the consequences of their bad decision. The late installation of her feed is not the only thing to blame for her death, the hacking is also to blame because it made her malfunction even more often which eventually lead her to death.

Before Violet’s death, she had desires for doing so many things, because she wanted to experience them in real life. Even though she had a limited amount of time, she made a list called, “Definitive list of things I want to do”(229). which most likely means that she didn’t want to die before completing or fulfilling her desires. She messages Titus oftenly about herself but Titus doesn’t chat her back because he doesn’t like the fact that he is going out with someone that is going to die. Sometimes he skims through the messages or reads the beginning of it, then he decides to delete them. They both have different feelings about each other, their relationship has changed a lot since the beginning.

Feed, part 3

Posted on March 17, 2014 by Fahmida

Part 3 of Feed start off with Normal, where everything goes back to normal for Titus and his friends. Titus and Violet goes to Quendy’s party and all of Titus’s friends are invited. Titus picks up Violet with his parents upcar, while they were talking in the car, Violet tells Titus that she doesn’t know how a party is like and Titus was surprised to hear that. They were all having a good time at the party. Violet tells Titus that her feedware is damaged from the hacking and she is really worried about it. the night after the party, Titus has these weird dreams about games and the police. A couple days after the party, Violet came up with a new project which involved going to the mall with Titus. At the mall, she tells him that everything they do is being watched.(97) They went home and chatted about the great time at the mall. Sometimes Titus worries that Violet is too smart for him. While they were at school, they were talking about how the schools used to be runned by the government back in the days and now their school is runned by the corporations. Later Titus was surprised to hear that Violet got her feed when she was seven because they didn’t have enough money and also because her parents didn’t want her to have one. She says that people with feed are ignorant, self-centered idiots. Titus thought she said that to him. Titus asks his mom if he is stupid and dumb, and she says that he is a wonderful boy and they’re proud of him. His parents decided to get him his own upcar. After hearing that, Titus got very excited. Titus, his dad and Violet went to get their new upcar. After getting a Dodge upcar, Titus’s family and Violet had dinner together. After dinner, Violet’s foot wasn’t working and that happened a few times since the hack, but she says she’ll be fine. The next day Titus went to Violet’s house and met her dad. They talked for a little bit and then Titus and Violet drove to the farm country. They enjoyed the place and did many things together. A few days later all the friends hung out at Marty’s. They were all talking about coke and how great it is. Violet tells Titus that his friends hate her and she wants to leave, Titus says they don’t, and Titus doesn’t want to leave. They were leaving with the upcar and started arguing. Then they went to Titus’s house. When Titus goes to school he realizes that Calista has a big new artificial lesion on the back of her neck, and everyone is talking about it. Then later Quendy got artificial lesions on her skin as well. At another party they were all playing spin- the- bottle. Violet’s body wasn’t working, so Titus called the ambulance.

Titus and Violet spend a lot of time together now since Titus got his own upcar. He gets more freedom than before. His friends are all very different and weird. The girls besides Violet, get lesions just to impress the boys. They do it as if its a competition among them. Violet’s feed system is getting worse since the hacking and Titus worries about her. All the friends get together a lot to have fun, but somehow things go wrong . In part 3, we learn more about Titus’s and Violet’s family.

Feed part 1&2

Posted on March 8, 2014 by Fahmida

Feed by M. T. Anderson is a futuristic novel about Titus and his group of friends. Titus and his friends go to the moon to spend their time during spring break. They try to enjoy the moon, even though it gets boring sometimes. They like it there because there is low gravity. All of their minds are set to a device called the feed. The feed is like a network where they are always connected to digital sites, such as music, entertainment programs and even chatting. They chat with others through m- chatting. Later Titus meets a girl named Violet, and he seems to like her a lot for some reason. Titus’s friends, Link, Marty, Calista, Loga, and Quendy meet Violet, but they think she is different than them. They all went to a club, and while they were at the club, a man hacks into their feeds, eventually they end up in the hospital. Their feeds weren’t working for some time. In the mean time, Titus and Violet start a romantic relationship. While they were recovering, Titus’s father came to see him.

The beginning of the novel was very confusing. A lot of things they were talking about was hard to understand, but it got clearer as I read on. At first it was hard to understand what the feed was. The language they use is confusing as well. In the novel, they don’t write with pens and things like that and when Violet writes with a pen in front of Titus, Titus was surprised that she writes. He questions her about that, he asked her ” you write” and she answered “sure.”(65) Their literacy wasn’t that great because they are always connected to the feed.

“Catfish”

Posted on February 23, 2014 by Fahmida

Nev’s film “Catfish” filmed by his brothers is basically about how Nev creates an online relationship with 8 year old Abby and her family, especially with her older half sister Megan. The friendship first begins between Abby and Nev. Abby as a child has very artistic skills. Abby sends Nev a painting of one of his photos all the way from Michigan to New York City. They became Facebook friends and later on Abby’s mom Angela and her sister Megan joins the friendship. Nev finds Megan to be very attractive, so they eventually start a romantic relationship online. Megan sends him songs saying its her own but Nev discovers that they are all from youtube. Later he also finds out that Angela and Abby were lying about Abby’s art. After all that, Nev and his brothers feel suspicious about Abby’s family so they decide to travel to Abby’s house in Michigan. First they visit the place where Megan said she lives at, but they find out she doesn’t live there, then they went to Abby’s house. Angela answers the door and seems happy to finally meet Nev. She tells him that she begun chemotherapy for uterine cancer. Nev meets Abby and talks to her about her paintings and her sister. Abby tells Nev that she doesn’t paint and that she doesn’t talk to her sister or know where she lives, she doesn’t even know how she looks. After meeting the family, Angela tells Nev that the pictures of Megan was a family friend, and her daughter Megan is in rehab. She also tells him that the paintings she sent him are all painted by her and not by Abby. Angela confesses that she was running all those Facebook profiles herself. By then, Nev realizes that it was Angela who was pretending to be Megan throughout their relationship. Nev talks to Angela’s husband Vince (who has two mentally disabled sons), Vince tells Nev that Angela lied about her relationship between Nev. Later Nev finds out that Angela didn’t have cancer, there was no Megan, and she doesn’t know the girl in the pictures, it was just a professional model. Angela deactivated all other 15 profiles and changed her Facebook profile to a picture of herself. Nev and Angela are still friends on Facebook. Angela was hiding the truth from Nev about herself and her family.

Angela curates the exhibition of the self (Marche 9) with her own profile as well as the other profiles she created. She did that by organizing and setting up everything the way she wanted. She made herself look younger and better online and on her painting. This is similar to what Sherry Turlke said in “The Flight From Conversation,” she stated that “texting and e-mail and posting let us present the self we want to be.” There was no authenticity at the beginning of the film, but the truth was revealed at the end. Nev trusted the family because their relationship and the way Angela set everything up seemed very real and trustworthy. which included, texting, messaging, phone calls etc. Nev had feelings for someone fake because at first he didn’t know she was fake. Angela lies online and when she is face- to- face with Nev about her cancer and Megan.

As Turkle said, “technology changes who we are and what we do” that’s exactly what happened to Angela and there was no authenticity in it. Angela takes other people’s photos from online and uses them, she didn’t think about their privacy or ownership because she was so eager to present the self she wanted to be. Nev’s visit displays the “mess of human interaction.”(Marche 8) I think Angela did all this because of loneliness. Vince’s story about the “vat full of codfish” means that there are things in life that keeps us active, he compares Angela with the catfish.

Summary: Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?

Posted on February 16, 2014 by Fahmida

“Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” by Stephen Marche focuses mainly on the effects of social media. New research shows that social media such as Facebook can make people very lonely and the loneliness is causing them to become mentally and physically ill. Movie star Yvette Vickers mummified body was found in her house. Her death was the subject of many Facebook posts and tweets within a few days. According to the article Facebook has as many as 845 million users and it is the largest Internet IPO in history. The company’s potential value is estimated to be $100 billion. Even though Facebook is really popular, it is creating loneliness among people and also creating distances between close relationships. Due to social media, loneliness is rising quickly which is making us more miserable.

Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?

Posted on February 10, 2014 by Fahmida

“Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?” by Stephen Marche focuses mainly on the effects of social media. New research shows that social media such as Facebook can make people very lonely and the loneliness is causing them to become mentally and physically ill. Movie star Yvette Vickers mummified body was found in her house. No one knew when she died, but her computer was still on when they found her body. Her death was the subject of many Facebook posts and tweets within a few days. According to the article Facebook has as many as 845 million users and it is the largest Internet IPO in history. The company’s potential value is estimated to be $100 billion. Even though Facebook is really popular, it is creating loneliness among people and also creating distances between close relationships. Due to social media, loneliness is rising quickly which is making us more miserable.

The new research and Stephen Marche’s claims on Facebook and other social media have a point. I would agree with most of the information in the article. Facebook and other social media sites are probably making people lonely. According to Stephen Marche, Yvette Vickers was a former playboy playmate and B-movie star and her dead body which was mummified was found by a neighbor. Her dead body was there for many days, but when they found her body, her computer was still on. If her computer was on , then she was probably using the computer before her death. Her death was the subject of 16,057 Facebook posts and 881 tweets and obviously her death got more attention than her everyday life. Some data collection proved that Vickers made calls to distant fans before her death. making calls to fans instead of family and friends for months shows that she was dealing with loneliness. At one point Stephen Marche mentions that ” the more connected we become, the lonelier we are.” (2)

Facebook is huge, it has many users, the company itself is worth a lot. Facebook was even compared to being a culture and a country because it is so vast in population. Even though it is very popular, Facebook is creating loneliness and distance between real friends and close relationships. Based on the article, loneliness is rising quickly and it is making us miserable. Facebook users read about other people’s good lives and feel miserable because they can’t be like that. Loneliness causes bad health conditions such as obesity, hormonal imbalances, memory may be worse, depression, bad sleeping and you are less likely to survive a serious operation. People with bad family relationships use social media to seek companionship. John Cacioppo, an expert on loneliness claims that the more face- to- face communication the less lonely you are.(7) Australian researcher’s study shows that Facebook users are excessive self lovers.

I found this image funny, and it actually shows how much a person can change because of social media. Normally you wouldn’t see Mona Lisa like this.

Facebook users have many friends, but out of all those friends, maybe a few of them are real friends. Personally I don’t think Facebook is about meaningful bonds. A persons personality can change based on the activities they do on social media sites. Tagging, liking, posting and commenting can build community but it can also be looked at it negatively because you have to be careful on what you do. People may post things that they think are interesting to them, like something funny or something that they think others should see. Is Facebook causing loneliness?…Does the internet make people lonely, or are lonely people more attracted to the internet?(5)….

Conversation facing Extinction!

Posted on February 3, 2014 by Fahmida

Since the last few years, people are dependent on technology for many reasons. Technology has really changed how we live our life. In both ” The Flight From Conversation” and ” Saving the Lost Art of Conversation,” Sherry Turkle expresses her opinions about technical communication. Sherry Turkle is a psycologist, proffessor, and an author. Her interests are of the relationship between humans and machines, even though Sherry Turkle disagrees with humans communicating with technology, she uses technology to communicate as well. The expanding use of technical devices is slowly diminishing our face to face conversation. Because of technical communication, many people are less confident about participating in conversations.

According to Sherry Turkle’s observations, we are using technology to communicate almost all the time. I totally agree with her opinion. As Sherry Turkle begins to write a new book named ” Reclaiming Conversation,” she spends many hours talking with people about conversation. She even had to eavesdrop on other’s conversations for her new book. She uses the research as well as her experiences to put her book together. We fail to realize that we use technology more than we think. Even when we sit together with our families, go to school, attend work; we text, e -mail, shop, social network, and do many more activities with our devices. We humans are always demanding for new gadgets, so then companies come up with new gadgets to present to us. Turkle states that conversations in person are messy because there are a lot pauses, interruptions and topic changes, but the messiness gives us time to think and react. while Megan Garber was interviewing Turkle, Turkle advises us to limit our device usage in ” sacred places” such as the dinner table. she believes eye -to -eye contact conversations make us human. She also believes that communication through technology hides the truth. We act a certain way when we are face -to -face and another way when we are texting.

While using technology, most of us are senseless of whats happening around us. I share the same feeling when Sherry Turkle says that ” we expect more from technology and less from one another and seem increasingly drawn to technologies that provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of relationship.” When people are alone, they try to connect to other people for that moment. Sherry Turkle states in ” The Flight From Conversation,” that young people who fear conversation wear earphones at work to avoid conversation. To my realization, students at school tempt to be occupied with earphones and their phones along with other devices when they are alone. As Sherry Turkle says ” texting, e -mail, and posting let us present the self we want to be.” Therefore conversation is going extinct!

Negotiating Networks and Dealing with Data: Composing our Digital Selves in an Online World

ENG 1101 (English Composition I), Professor Belli, Spring 2014

Author Archives: Fahmida