Turkle addresses the idea that todays students are "uninterested in violations of privacy.
" This Idea is reflected In the others pieces from this section by Carr, Deresiewicz, Gotham and Stoblerskl. All of these authors in some way reflect that as technology advances, newer generations become more Integrated Into technology and lack Interest In personal privacy. Computers are being introduced very early on in life so that newer generations are increasingly more comfortable with the presence of computers. "Machines are eing designed to serve explicitly as companions, pets and tutors.And they are introduced in school settings for the youngest children. " Students grow more accustomed to depending on technology and "our children are accustomed to electronic surveillance as part of their daily lives.
" Everything we do online leaves an electronic trace, yet we very rarely consider what these trails could mean for our privacy. Many sites can easily track what pages you view and it is very likely that the government monitors our web surfing habits as well. "Professors find that students o not understand that In a Democracy, privacy Is a right, not a privilege. Many about what rights they are Infringing upon.
Sharing personal Information on Facebook and other social networking sites is essentially a voluntary secession of privacy. In Carr's "Is Google Making us Stupid" he explores the reality that Google and in general the internet is making us reliant on the internet to think. Google's goal is to create the "perfect search engine" essentially a self thinking search engine with true artificial intelligence. However, "as we come to rely on computers to mediate our nderstanding of the world, it is our own intelligence that flattens into artificial intelligence.
Humanity Is loosing the part of thinking that makes us human. Rather than thinking and analyzing information for ourselves, we really on the internet to throw Information at us on demand. We are losing our humanity and with It our need for privacy. In "Faux Friendship" Deresiewicz describes the effect that social networking sites are having on our perception of privacy and friendship. One on one friendship is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
"Until a few years ago, you could share your houghts with only one friend at a time...Now we're Just broadcasting our stream of consciousness.
.. We havent just stopped talking to our friends as individuals, at such moments, we have stopped thinking of our friends as individuals. We have turned them into an indiscriminate mass, a kind of audience or faceless public. " Facebook may boast "privacy settings" but they do very little in terms of protecting ones private thoughts when we voluntarily share our most Intimate thoughts with out 500+ "friends". Gatham describes her relationship with her cell phone In her fittingly titled piece, "Cell Phones".
This relationship goes through several stages but In the end her narrative comes down to the idea that we as people choose our level of privacy based feelings with the world, but managed properly it can be very positive. Similarly, cell phones can be used to distance ones self or to better connect an individual with the world. There is no reason that advancements in technology should automatically eliminate our privacy. It is our own fault that we allow our life to be broadcast continually and that we allow our government to infringe upon our rights by allowing them to monitor our lives through the internet.
