Privacy

Can you really have a conversation about privacy without saying first, privacy is an illusion. 

People think that they can guard their privacy. Some of them go to great lengths to do so. Honestly though, you would have to live completely off the grid, from day you were born, to have privacy.

The definition of privacy is;
1. the state of being apart from other people or concealed from their view
2. the state of being free from unwanted or undue intrusion or disturbance in one's private life or affairs
3. freedom from damaging publicity, public scrutiny, secret surveillance, or unauthorized disclosure of one's personal data or information.

Ohhhhhh...look at #3! Hmmm. This is where it gets tricky, right? Facebook is in big trouble right now for not keeping their user's personal information, private. I think FB is pretty intrusive. When I set up my FB, I lied or omitted almost everything they asked for. Turns out, that was a pretty good idea. FB is sneaky. Really sneaky! And controlling. Wow! But people will get over it. FB will say they're going to do better and people will say, ok, and forget all about it. 

Just like Amazon Echo/Alexa. At first, people were a little freaked out about that whole "always on" technology. Then Amazon explained how it works and people said, oh...ok. 

But if you have a computer/laptop/tablet/smart phone, you don't have any privacy. 

I suspect that people aren't really concerned so much with privacy as they are with HOW someone is using their personal data. That's really what it comes down to, isn't it? If they use it to target what kinds of ads you see online, is that alright? How about if they arbitrarily decide if you're a liberal or conservative and then target you with specific political ads. Or, how about if they use or health care data to determine if you're an insurance "risk"? There are so many other examples it's mind boggling.

Technology is really still so new. It's hard to tell how it's affecting us. Is it good for us? Bad? People argue against too much of  it, while others embrace it. I wonder all the time, what it will be like in another 50 years. Will my great grandchildren rely so much on social media? Will they value their privacy? Or will the media in general control every aspect of their lives.