Recently (read "today") I came across this article. Strangely, it made me think of something that isn't directly related to it, but is perhaps relevant to the topic of social networking, nevertheless.
You might also have seen this image, depicting the possible future of Google. I don't wish to talk too much about Google, as it is something that has been beaten to death by experts online; enough to have spurred a score of conspiracy theories. So let me, for the time being, blatantly forget about the giant named Google and the power of its codes. Instead, I choose to (quite contrary to this) point out a speck in the eye when there's a log in my own (quite frankly, I think that analogy is bogus, and JHC could have used a better one).
Disclaimer (before I forget): I am writing some of my thoughts and opinions about social networking. While I understand that some of the things being talked about may be unethical (yet "legitimate"), and it isn't fair on my part to sling mud, when I myself might have been practicing some of these unethical things.
Talking more about social networking websites, it is simply astounding sometimes, to see how much information there is, online. Furthermore, with the information age, the detail of the information present is equally astounding. Consider this example, for instance - back when you were a kid, the only way you could look back at a vacation you had was whatever everyone remembered, what somebody might have written down (a journal or diary, possibly) and a handful of pictures that the person behind the lens managed to cram into 32-36 frames of the celluloid roll. Today, point-and-shoot digital cameras have made the detail of photographic documentation immense; yet they have brought down the value you would associate with a memoir-image. Before you would re-evaluate the need to take a photo, because you had only so many snaps left, but now you snap away, and end up deleting 80% of what you clicked. People take photos of everything, every event, every going-out-for-coffee! To add to the insult, these get posted on the social networking website. Although this is mostly a social thing, I wonder whether technological aids have made us less skilled at doing certain things. Luckily though, there are so many skills that remain at the same level of difficulty to learn - like riding a bicycle (maybe Nintendo has come up with some weird controller and a game for the wii to help with that too!). I for one, love to appreciate technology and the amazing things it does for us, but I would still want myself to learn more and try to improve my body and mind. So, often I try to find things that techology has made, that makes for a good challenge.
Thinking along those lines also makes me worried about another thing. Living in the US, where the sanitary conditions are so high, will it make my immune system weaker? Eating such amazingly clean and good food (and not eating junk food), will my digestive system become "sissy"? Will I go sick the moment I get back to India? Hopefully, the appropriately tempered body won't have too many issues...
Coming back to the thoughts on social networking, and the detail of your information currently on the internet, it is scary that an independent person on the internet can find so much about you! This makes it very very easy to "cyber-stalk" someone. It may be a dysphemism when writing so, because true stalking would be monitoring every move. For the matter, every Web2.0 social networking page has Feeds to updates from every person, further facilitating this! And the more significant your online presence, the more that can be found about you. Furthermore, the internet seems to provide this seemingly "safe atmosphere of anonymity" that it almost encourages you to divulge details that you would otherwise not! Fortunately, at least your email transactions are not visible to the public. Now, it's not like someone hasn't voiced this out to the social networking sites - privacy is a huge issue, and if I may say, especially so for the fairer sex (for whom the internet is way unsafer than the men). So, they budged and added a lot of privacy options. Still, the awareness level is so less, and there's so much that you can still find out, that it still is a detectable cyberstalking threat. The last part of this video spooked me along those lines. I myself have used information available online to start/sustain conversations with people. You may call this a lame excuse, but this is, in no way, illegal, as the people who have put up their information online have chosen to do so. Whether or not they are aware of it is a totally different story though.
So people, let's try to keep ourselves from becoming just a set of tags.
You might also have seen this image, depicting the possible future of Google. I don't wish to talk too much about Google, as it is something that has been beaten to death by experts online; enough to have spurred a score of conspiracy theories. So let me, for the time being, blatantly forget about the giant named Google and the power of its codes. Instead, I choose to (quite contrary to this) point out a speck in the eye when there's a log in my own (quite frankly, I think that analogy is bogus, and JHC could have used a better one).
Disclaimer (before I forget): I am writing some of my thoughts and opinions about social networking. While I understand that some of the things being talked about may be unethical (yet "legitimate"), and it isn't fair on my part to sling mud, when I myself might have been practicing some of these unethical things.
Talking more about social networking websites, it is simply astounding sometimes, to see how much information there is, online. Furthermore, with the information age, the detail of the information present is equally astounding. Consider this example, for instance - back when you were a kid, the only way you could look back at a vacation you had was whatever everyone remembered, what somebody might have written down (a journal or diary, possibly) and a handful of pictures that the person behind the lens managed to cram into 32-36 frames of the celluloid roll. Today, point-and-shoot digital cameras have made the detail of photographic documentation immense; yet they have brought down the value you would associate with a memoir-image. Before you would re-evaluate the need to take a photo, because you had only so many snaps left, but now you snap away, and end up deleting 80% of what you clicked. People take photos of everything, every event, every going-out-for-coffee! To add to the insult, these get posted on the social networking website. Although this is mostly a social thing, I wonder whether technological aids have made us less skilled at doing certain things. Luckily though, there are so many skills that remain at the same level of difficulty to learn - like riding a bicycle (maybe Nintendo has come up with some weird controller and a game for the wii to help with that too!). I for one, love to appreciate technology and the amazing things it does for us, but I would still want myself to learn more and try to improve my body and mind. So, often I try to find things that techology has made, that makes for a good challenge.
Thinking along those lines also makes me worried about another thing. Living in the US, where the sanitary conditions are so high, will it make my immune system weaker? Eating such amazingly clean and good food (and not eating junk food), will my digestive system become "sissy"? Will I go sick the moment I get back to India? Hopefully, the appropriately tempered body won't have too many issues...
Coming back to the thoughts on social networking, and the detail of your information currently on the internet, it is scary that an independent person on the internet can find so much about you! This makes it very very easy to "cyber-stalk" someone. It may be a dysphemism when writing so, because true stalking would be monitoring every move. For the matter, every Web2.0 social networking page has Feeds to updates from every person, further facilitating this! And the more significant your online presence, the more that can be found about you. Furthermore, the internet seems to provide this seemingly "safe atmosphere of anonymity" that it almost encourages you to divulge details that you would otherwise not! Fortunately, at least your email transactions are not visible to the public. Now, it's not like someone hasn't voiced this out to the social networking sites - privacy is a huge issue, and if I may say, especially so for the fairer sex (for whom the internet is way unsafer than the men). So, they budged and added a lot of privacy options. Still, the awareness level is so less, and there's so much that you can still find out, that it still is a detectable cyberstalking threat. The last part of this video spooked me along those lines. I myself have used information available online to start/sustain conversations with people. You may call this a lame excuse, but this is, in no way, illegal, as the people who have put up their information online have chosen to do so. Whether or not they are aware of it is a totally different story though.
So people, let's try to keep ourselves from becoming just a set of tags.
3 comments:
nice set of thoughts uve penned.. i mean.. keyed down there :)..
lol @ that comic on google.. ur take on Digital photoraphy, i agree with it too.. fotos have probably lost wat they meant to us a few decades ago.. theyre nothing more than a few kilobytes of memory now.. but ofcourse, we can now click away without concern..
also true wat u said about internet stalking.. even ive had situations in which ive tried to find out what a person has been upto lately by stalking him/her on facebook/orkut etc, which store almost all the info on activities..
technical dependence.. haha, i see it all around me in singapore.. wonder wat these ppl wud do wen they came to india.. and lol @ ur immune system theory, we were talking about that too recently.. in fact its true, one of my friends sister has been here around 8 years now, and she's more prone to colds wen she comes home to india :D..
rocking post, dude..
British Homeopathic Association..
Thanks man :-)
Bursting Hemorrhaged Arteries.
"This instrument [television] can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and even it can inspire, but it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it's nothing but wires and lights in a box."
-- Edward R Murrow, whose work was chronicled in "Good Night and Good Luck"
-viveck
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