Privacy online and building networks

We can’t have it all. We balance our desires for privacy and this new way of socializing through the internet. The internet has somehow provided a device in which we experience a new level of privacy but at the same time making our lives more open to each other than ever before.

The chapter, “Privacy and Surveillance in Digital Life”, talks about the wealth of information available about an individual on the internet. To begin the term “privacy” has changed with the times. A generation back people considered privacy to be a different thing, not involving having your personal information, photos and thoughts posted for the world to see. Peoples conception of what constitutes privacy involves three elements according to Spinello, solitude, secrecy, and anonymity all of which we think we have more than we do on the internet.

For one we voluntarily put information out there for people to see through our various social media platforms, that’s a given. The concept of putting so much personal information out there by choice is new. To some it seems counterintuitive to want that degree of privacy but choose to put, names emails, and addresses online or the way we “tweet” or “insta”. What we consider privacy is activity we choose not to publicly show but with all the surveillance methods available to the government and companies nothings private. Marketers can find out what specific pages you look at on Ebay or Google through “cookies” to market to a customer better. Anything you see, do, or breathe online is traceable countering this whole notion of “anonymity” that the online world offers.

In talking about this debate in privacy I talked about all the information we put out there ourselves using social networking sites. Of course we have the option to not share our lives on the internet but on the other hand this is how our generation has constructed their communities or lack their of. I don’t believe you could say we belong to a certain community for too long. We have a stronger connection to the term “network” in my opinion. The other article talks about this shift from community to network and how that’s happened through the internet and technology. I feel as if the concept of community doesn’t even apply anymore because of the information we can share on the internet keeping us connected to one another.

The article talks about how a lot of our communication with each other has become “Phatic” communication. This means that were communicating for the sake of communicating with no real exchange of information. This kind of communication keeps us connected to people but with weak social ties to one another. Instagram and twitter seem to be phatic platforms of communication not building relationships with one person but rather everyone following you.

Using these social networking sites we forfeit our privacy to maintain these weak social ties. It seems to be important to us to stay connected with people who barely seem relevant to our lives but these are the networks that replace a sense of community people might desire. I personally like my wide network of people with whom I have varying levels of connectedness but it allows me to compartmentalize my life in a good way. Phatic communication might be seen as a bad thing but I would disagree. If my network is based partially on phatic communication it has become my community so Im okay with that.