Big data has the potential to put and end to poverty worldwide, yet those living in poverty are most vulnerable to invasion of privacy by big data.
This working thesis reflects my concept for the paper, yet I feel like I need to better word it.
Category: Eng 110 (Page 1 of 2)
Kennerly, Ellen. “Privacy and the Internet.” CQ Press 28.6: 122-143. CQ Researcher. 2 April 2018.
This source goes very in-depth; it contains a lot of information that is focused on our privacy in the internet world. I think I will be able to both find supporting information and naysayer information within this article.
Going into the Big Data project not knowing much about it besides the two TED talks, Alessandro Acquisti’s “Future without Secrets” and Glenn Greenwald’s “Why Privacy Matters”, I believed that Big Data was a bad, privacy invading thing. After looking through the “Big Data Resource” page I saw that it wasn’t bad or good, but I very complex topic. While I still intend on leaning towards Big Data being a negative thing, I found some good naysayers with good points. One such source was Kenneth Cukier’s TED Talk, “Big Data is Better Data”, which opened up all the positive thing’s big data does and can do. Cukier’s speech was mainly positive, but it also brought up points that interested me and made me uneasy, such as machine intelligence challenging human’s jobs. Also, another route I am considering exploring is how some people are more apt to have their privacy invaded by Big Data as brought up in Christopher Soghoian’s TED Talk, “Your Smartphone is a Civil Rights Issue”. It was interesting to find that Apple products have better security in protecting your data, but are more expensive. While Android products are more affordable but have less security and protection of your data, meaning that low income people are hence more vulnerable. The Big Data sources I found really interesting, eye opening, and varied on the sides they took. Since I did not know much about Big Data before this project the sources were an overload of information. I plan to think about what direction I want to take my paper in and to revisit these sources.
I found Alessandro Acquisti’s TED Talk, “Future without Secrets” very eye opening. I would agree that we as a society often put forth information about ourselves without consideration of where it might end up and the possible consequence. This was backed up by Acquisti’s example of the college students who answered the questions about their behavior on a college campus, including “Have you cheated before?”. Their answers could possibly have detrimental effects upon their college careers, yet they still volunteered information without much of thought. I believe that we so easily put forth information about ourselves on the internet because we are unaware of how it could be used in the future and also that we are unaware we are putting forth information; Acquitsi’s TED talk was effective in bringing awareness to just how our information could be used. A couple the future scenarios he brought up particularly put me at unease “ strangers around you will look at you through their Google Glasses or, one day, their contact lenses, and use seven or eight data points about you to infer anything else which may be known about you” and “So next time you are looking for a certain product, and there is an ad suggesting you to buy it, it will not be just a standard spokesperson. It will be one of your friends, and you will not even know that this is happening.”. It was scary to my how much information company’s can figure out about you just by what you online shop or who communicate with most on social media. Furthermore, how they can use it to manipulate you as shown by the friend replacing the spokesperson; “it already vastly underestimates the amount of information that organizations can gather about you, and how they can use it to influence you in a way that you will not even detect.” Despite all the statistics and possible scenarios, Acquitsi ended his speech in an optimistic light that assured the listeners that the scenarios put forward could be, at least somewhat, prevented.
Dear Diary,
This morning Madalyn hit snooze on my alarm (that she set mind you) ten times! When she finally decided to get up she quickly checked her email, which contained nothing important, before tossing my into her laundry bin as she rushed around. If she had gotten up the first time I went off she wouldn’t have to rush, just saying!
Then I am tossed into her backpack in with all the pens. Why can’t she just keep me in her comfy sweatpants pocket? The pens are bullies. Doesn’t she notice the scratches on my screen?? I get the occasional escape during class so she can check the time and if she has any messages (like she thinks I forget to go off when she gets a text or what?), but finally when I hear the professor wrap it up her hand simultaneously reaches down for me.
Next is a quick text to the “Fresh 5” chat to see who wants to grab lunch and a quick scan through Instagram as we wait for them to show up. During lunch, thankfully, I get to stay out on the table incase she has something funny to show everyone (it’s not usually actually funny).
not done
In chapter ten of Mind Change, I agreed with Greenfield’s claim that “a lifetime of early exposure to the influences of Facebook and Twitter is producing a cultural mindset that is different from that of previous generations” (page 119). Within this piece of literature, and many others including the Atlantic article “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” or It’s Complicated by Danah Boyd, there is specific evidence, such as increased depression levels, that back up this argument.
Although I found many of Twenge’s claims not to be evident in my own life and many of her examples I considered exaggerated or to be the most extreme cases, I do agree with her claim that smartphones are negatively affecting teens’ sleep. Twenge states “In just four years from 2012 to 2015, 22 percent more teens failed to get seven hours of sleep. The increase is suspiciously timed, once again starting around the time when most teens got a smartphone.”; in this quote Twenge provides a statistic to back her claim that teens’ sleep is affected and then ties it’s time frame to that of the smartphone to support the other half of her claim that the smartphone is the cause. Further than the statistics provided by Twenge, there is science to why smartphones inhibit sleep; the blue light that is emitted from the screen has been proved to delay the release of sleep inducing hormones. Also, I find this claim personally to be true; often times I find myself exhausted laying in bed at night yet still awake because I am caught up on something on my phone: Netflix, social media, or just the internet itself.
I worked on adding in a relevant quote and would revise it’s framework.
“They see social media as a place to gather with friends while balancing privacy and safety with humor and image.” (Pg. 47)
“Impressions we make on others are a product of what is given and what is given off.” (Pg. 48)
“Teens…are grappling with battles that adults face, but they are doing so while under constant surveillance and without a firm grasp of who they are. In short, they are navigating on heck of a cultural labyrinth.” (Pg. 53)
I found chapter one of It’s Complicated by Danah Boyd to be very insightful as it refers to a number of perspective on how teens take on online identities. I agreed with the point that how you portray yourself online is becoming increasingly more complicated as we deal with how different audiences view the posts – from our peers to potential employers. I have definitley experienced this myself; I find myself considering what my grandparents and teachers would think when posting photos online.
Adios 2011 Facebook me, stop using Facebook as your diary. FYI Mom knows about you, not as clever as you think you are Maddi Hoopster.
Sherry Turkle in her TED Talk “Connected, but alone?” discusses how technology is negatively impacting how we engage with others and how we view solitude. While she argues early on that “technology is taking us places we don’t want to go”, Turkle’s talk isn’t about giving up technology completely; rather that we need to be more self aware of our relationship with it and ourselves. She goes further to claim that technology is so “psychologically powerful” because it provides a constant companionship – a false empathy – but without the risks of intimacy. This controlled connection is always there and allows us to retouch, edit, and carefully plan out what we text, tweet, or post; thus giving us more control than traditional conversation. Turkle says that this is leading us as a society to expect more from our smartphone than our friends as it appeals to us when we are vulnerable and lonely: “being alone is becoming viewed as a problem to be solved”. The TED talk is concluded with the idea that if we are never able to be alone, we will become more lonely; Turkle’s solution to this is issue is that we need to come to recognize our vulnerabilities and value solitude.
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