I am convinced that, like so many other traditional values, our right to, and desire for, privacy is quickly becoming but a vestige of an earlier era, We readily share information on Facebook, for example, most never checking their privacy settings, leaving ourselves open to all kinds of manipulations and intrusions and even giving potential employers ample reason not to hire us. When we download apps (since I don't have a smartphone, I am somewhat protected) we blithely check of the Accept Agreement that is mandatory before we get our 'free' new application that, after all, promises to make our life so much better given the promise of control literally at our fingertips.
However, as most of us know on some level, nothing is ever really free. At the very least, the following report should serve as a wake-up call to regularly check our privacy setting on all of our devices:
I'm beginning to suspect, Lorne, that we just took the hook too deep to free ourselves now. We've got our own social black hole,commonly called the Memory Hole. Things that ought to enrage us and inspire us to collectively demand they be addressed succumb to our sub-human attention span.
ReplyDeleteScience is warning us of the way our brain function is being changed by a dependency on "devices" - smartphones, tablets - that can become a serious addiction.
I have the luxury of being able to set aside an hour or two every day to read - books, real books. It's a great way to reconnect to a reality that is elusive in the internet era in which belief and opinion so often masquerades as knowledge and fact.
I agree with everything you have said here, Mound. As well, I also read everyday, both print newspapers and books, the latter of which's satisfaction cannot be replicated electronically.
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