Personhood & Privacy

The question about personal privacy has been a subject for debate. How much does society value privacy in today’s digital world? Nowadays everything is connected through new media and technology. It’s hard to imagine how one can be functional without the use of email or smartphones. Moreover, by registering at certain institutions, or making personal purchases, we agree by default to have our personal information available to the public. Whatever used to be private becomes more and more available on Web searches. The personal data collected on people is sold to the websites that allow them to use it for their purposes without permission. Or, perhaps, the permission was asked in some “terms of use” that we ignored.  Some people get frustrated at this fact, others consider it irrelevant. However, everyone has to accept it since it is a vital part of almost everybody’s life. Living in the modern world requires every person to become a part of a public database, and to be ready to have their information shared and sold to the third parties that will use it and post it on their behalf. After interviewing ten different individuals that are part of the Baruch community, it became clear that sharing personal information with the public does not represent a threat to them, as long as the collected personal information is not used against them. While privacy is important, the convenience that new media and technology provide outweighs any potential danger, which means that being “ A private person, a person who is a mystery” is no longer important for today’s generation (Smith, 10).

With the use of new technology and social media, people become insensitive about their privacy. Moreover, they are being forced to give it up in return for convenience. Personal information became public and it’s hard for people who care to know where their information is.  Jacob, a freshman studying political science, is very animated on the topic of social media and privacy: “Who cares about your privacy when it’s on such a huge scale, no one person using Facebook or Google is being singled out and spied on. Google is convenient, Facebook is fun and it provides a very convenient service for all of us to socialize on many levels.” His thoughts are quite similar to the overall opinion encountered about the trade-off of privacy in return for convenience. Another anonymous Baruch student says, “In order to enjoy social media such as Facebook and Twitter, you are giving up some sense of privacy.” Social media websites are constantly coming up with new updates for their users to have an easier and more convenient experience. They also create certain advantages for them. For instance, in an anonymous interview, a junior student stated that, “you can choose what you want to put on,” which gives people an opportunity to produce a certain image and impression through a social media profile, a sort of personal advertisement campaign. This same student reveals one of the most common worries, which is to have one’s social media profile accessed by an employer, current or potential. From his words, this concern is easy to fix by changing the name, the age or even removing certain pictures from one’s profile. Therefore, social media is considered as a platform where one gets to choose how much private information they want to share with the public.

Aside from social media, there are other websites and applications that once downloaded into our smartphones invade our privacy. Another student, John, who is 22 years old, mentions how after being approved for a credit card, his “email was flooded from other credit card companies, trying to sell their credit card.” This means that our personal information is shared with people and companies whose names aren’t even known. Also, lately on Google one can find certain personal information on people who don’t even have social media profiles such as age, addresses, and even criminal records. Financial institutes and the government have the right to such information, but should it be expected that one day this data would be available through Google search? Google records and stores every search and on top of that, data brokers are able to see these searches and then sell that information off to the other website. Perhaps the generation growing up with this media is used to the invasion of privacy so they don’t care, while older generations may have some worries. Regardless, most people don’t think of major problems that could occur from the personal data sharing.

The general opinion about the main reason for personal privacy invasion is based on advertisement purposes. People are being manipulated to purchase certain things that were pre-selected for them after their previous purchases. Any advertisement on the sides of one’s computer screen, whether on Facebook, Amazon, or any other site for consumer products, is an ad specifically put on because of previous searches. This technique of target advertising is “a little creepy, but convenient” according to Professor Desena from the School of Public Affairs. He continues, saying “I don’t find it to be a breach of my privacy because there is no such thing as privacy anymore.” Another anonymous female interviewee talks about how people are inclined to think that personal data sharing “is not going to affect you negatively.” The most noticeable outcome of this is the email box overflowing with advertisements that are based on a user’s previous purchases. This aspect of data sharing for a lot of people is considered as something positive and very convenient while others see it as invasive but harmless. Privacy is gone when searching the web nowadays. Michelle, an economics major, works for an online store that sells consumer products. She explains why her company uses the Zopim app, an app that tracks consumer’s actions, such as receiving feedback on their experiences as well as being able to see the customer’s exact location and what kind of device they are using to view her site. She finds it very helpful because she is able to find cities and neighborhoods that are more active on the site and then able to put out heavier advertising in that area, a technique known as geo-targeting. Michelle knows that her company is using tactics just as all the others do and believes that it is not a breach of privacy. Her belief is the majority opinion. Internet users will not discontinue the use of social media, search engines, and online shops, even though their information is not completely private.

With all of the social media available to us, it became a trend to be liked by many followers which requires a certain loss of individuality. Author Zadie Smith claims that “the idea of personhood is certainly changing, perhaps already has changed” (Smith, 10). The way that people represent themselves online isn’t always true to who they are, causing a change in the way other people view them. Josh Hoffman, a junior at the college, says that “people’s identities are different now that they have this whole new way of presenting themselves, and people do things just so they can put it online. And the way people interact is totally different.” An anonymous transfer student claims that “now people are no longer individuals…now everyone has just become a mass production of an image to which they deem valuable.” People can now upload anything online about themselves, whether it’s true or not. It’s almost impossible to know if the way somebody represents himself or herself online is how he or she truly is in person. People place a lot of value in their online personas, sometimes letting it define them. Brian Machaluck, a freshman, proposed a situation: “Say one of your friends posts a certain kind of status thinking a certain type of way and you post a status and you don’t get as many likes… so you’re going to try to change yourself, I feel, maybe at least in the public’s eye to get more likes, to be more liked online…I think maybe people’s perception of themselves are changing, maybe we’re losing part of ourselves.” When people place so much value in such a fluctuating thing, such as likes they get on a Facebook status, their sense of self may be degraded. They lose part of themselves in social media, part of who they really are. It’s important that people use social media simply as an aid to their social lives, not the entirety of it. Unfortunately not everyone remembers to do so. The same transfer student shares his opinions on the matter: “Social media tends to make people think a lot of themselves…given people so much self-esteem and so much self-awareness to a point to where I don’t understand how a person can maintain that type of level of confidence and security without the exact opposite reaction of depression and insecurity. Fifteen minutes of fame–people have now begun to take seriously. It’s no longer just a phrase, but now instead of fifteen minutes, it’s fifteen seconds.” There is nothing wrong with people who want to be famous, as long as it’s not for the wrong reasons. More so than that, people need to remember not to be completely consumed by that. If people become too absorbed in the process of fame, or in the media world and technology of today, they may lose a part of themselves. That problem should never be encountered in any situation. It has been happening more often than anyone realizes and, perhaps even worse than that, no one sees it as a problem.

We live in a world that is constantly developing. New technology and all of the media created made it possible for people to become more productive and save a lot of time on an everyday basis. However, for such luxuries we are being forced to give up our privacy and become a part of public database. We are being categorized and sorted out by sex, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, personal interests, medical records, and any other possible aspects that a person can be. It has not been a worry for majority of our generation, which is not to say that this fact never affected anyone personally. Moreover, the research that was done at Baruch showed that majority of people are justifying all of the corporations that gather our personal information for their use. It is considered to be done in order to make our life experience more convenient. Furthermore, the use of social media is considered almost mandatory for today’s generation. It became important to share life experience publicly with virtual friends and collect their appreciation. People transposed their lives into the Web, potentially losing their sense of life in reality. The whole idea of “personhood” is constantly changing. Whatever used to be private a few years ago is public today and whatever is left private today would be possibly public in a near future. The questions are how much further can the private information be revealed and available to the public, and how much time do we have left until it will start affecting us personally? Most importantly, it is needed to know why manipulation and erasure of individuality are justified by our society and accepted as fun and convenient.

Works Cited

Smith, Zadie, “Generation Why?”, The New York Review of Books, 25 Nov 2010. Web