Privacy in the Digital Age

The older I get the more instances I see of confirmation of the saying, “ignorance is bliss.” The stats provided in the Pew Research Center survey in this week’s reading is the latest confirmation. The survey found that 74 percent of those who are more aware of government surveillance efforts are more likely to feel there are not adequate safeguards in place, compared with 62 percent of people who have heard of only a little about such programs.

I expected to find more generational differences in attitudes about surveillance and privacy, that digital natives might be less concerned about privacy. Most of the survey results didn’t show a difference based on age.

I also thought it was interesting that social media users felt they had “a lot” of control over how much information is collected about them and how it is used – social networking sites such as Facebook are notorious for claiming your data and using it however they want.

The Guardian article on the death of privacy brought up some privacy cases that I had never heard of, and kind of still wish I hadn’t. I spent way too much time trying to find the Max Mosley video before deciding I really do not need to watch it to understand the case, and I also spent too much time trying to sort through 2004-2040.com. When I read that Alberto Frigo posting about dreaming of women besides his wife and his response of, “She did not accept that I dreamed of other girls,” (and in my mind, it was that he was posting about it for everyone to know that he was dreaming about women besides his wife) I had decided I wasn’t going to spend much time on his site. Philosophically the concept of the site is intriguing, and I understand why brutal honesty is important for his project and in some ways can admire his dedication to his cause at the expense of his relationship, but I guess I wonder if at the end of his life if he will say the site was worth it. Going back to last week’s article about waiting five minutes – giving something contrarian to your own views a second thought, maybe one day I’ll appreciate the site more.

I thought the premise of The Intercept – that they will measure the tendencies of readers without compromising their identities – was encouraging. I hope they will find a way to sustain what they are doing.