Privacy-Dividing Communities

Having the police think you are an American spy is fun.  The police stopping you in the street to make sure you are registered seems adventurous.  Police banging on your apartment door, checking your registration and then investigating whether or not you are part of a crime that occured is intimidating.  Picking up your phone and hearing the police tap your phone line is scary.  While living in a small rural town in a snow covered Russia, I found myself in these situations, wondering what happened to my privacy.  I then thought about home, here in the United States of America, where a person's privacy is theirs and not impeded upon by any force.  Or is it?

New media technologies have brought change to privacy.  GPS, social networking sites, cell phones and even the use of government security cameras on the streets all are developed from new technology and is infringing on personal privacy.  While most of these can be avoided, in the fast paced world of adapting to new technology we are very suseptable to losing what is most important to us.  Or do we freely give our privacy away?

Posting pictures, giving personal information and giving constant updates are the heart and soul of social networking sites.  Appearing to be clean fun, the use of these sites puts you and everything you and your 'friends' say about you on the world wide web for all to see.  Is that privacy?  Knowing this, why do people still do it?  Watch this video about privacy and social networking sites.

People want to feel connected, feel like they are a part of something big, or just keep in touch with friends and meet new people.  While this is all solved by partaking in social networking sites, it leads to self disclosure of privacy. Due to a popularity in these networking sites, people are drawn in, and then they feel they need to openly follow and do whatever they seem is needed to stay up with what is new and happening.  

Yes, I am on Facebook.  When I joined a couple years ago, I was leary of joining it because I did not want to be part of a site like Myspace.  My friends ensured me that it was not at all like it, and that only college students with college based email addresses could join and be part of it.  I look now and see how Facebook has unfortunetly evolved into something just like Myspace.  

Ever been on that date when all the sudden you feel your cell phone vibrating, and as you look over towards your date you see their expression that they hear it going off?  Cellular phones have been very helpful in connecting people, maybe sometimes too much.  While social networking sites are seen as the bigger privacy invader it turns out cell phones actually make the largest impact on your loss of privacy. Check out this article on cell phones and its invasion on your privacy.

It seems as if you can never get away from being connected to someone, and that somehow a person is going to get a hold of you.  At work, school, on a date, sleeping, in the bathroom, etc., we willingly put ourselves susceptible to this privacy invading technology.  While it may come off as being useful, in the long run it destroys the freedom of peace and privacy we deserve.  

How much further will this development in giving up our privacy occur?  Should we hold back on technological advancements until society can decide and deal with the engaging situations we now face?  I dunno.  Will I continue to add pictures to my Facebook page?  You better believe it.  Now, next time I go on a date, should I turn my cell phone off...

Facebook:Social Upgrade or Society's Downfall?

New media technology and the Internet have given rise to social networking sites, namely Facebook.  Connecting people from your local community to all across the world, this new technology has given the individual freedom to access to the world.  From keeping relationships between family, friends, co-workers to even becoming a dating service, Facebook has given people a new way to communicate with everyone at the touch of their fingertip.  Or has it warped the society and destroyed true communication between individuals and communities?  

Having friends and family all over the world, Facebook has given me the opportunity to keep in touch and share pictures with people I possibly before Facebook would not have seen again.  On a more local basis, though Facebook has me in touch friends that live here in the Salt Lake area, I have found myself becoming more lazy in actually going to see them and talk to them.  A simple message, comment on their status or picture, or even a little poke(though I thoroughly think they're ridiculous) and I feel as if I have connected with that person, prompting me to not have to truly go face to face with this individual, or at least give them a call.  Even the use of chat on Facebook is not true communication.  Repeatedly I have talked with people more on chat then I have in person.  I have come to see how this affecting my social ability to interact and communicate with people that are within my own community.  Isn't Facebook supposed to help people cultivate and maintain communication and interaction amongst it's users?

Like Michael Bugeja addresses in the reading from last week, people are moving away from developing and sustaining lasting relationships and filling it with new digital devices which we feel will help us avoid loneliness.  Bugeja goes on to say, "Because we lack practice interacting with others face-to-face, or act on impulse using technology, we cannot always foresee how people might respond to our thoughts, words, and deeds." While users believe they are communicating more with people, they really are communicating less and especially at a lower level of communication.  With people within communities not communicating amongst each other, a separation occurs causing loss and greatly affecting the outcome of the area.  Though through the use of Facebook in creating an event or letting a mass group of people know about a city planning meeting, etc, not everyone has access to the Internet nor do they all have Facebook, causing a divide amongst community members and further widening the gap.  The only answer as Bugeja says it is, "face-to-face interaction good, other kinds bad."  

Facebook comes with its good and its bad.  Determining how much use is too much is the hard part to figure out.  So, if the old fashioned method of face to face communication is best, maybe we should bring back the typewriter too?

Check out the video of social interaction on Facebook from Youtube-

Digital Divide

Living in the Ural Mountain region of Russia, I found myself every week hoping that the local Internet cafe would be up and working.  Depending on the city or area I was living in, sometimes it was reliable and other times the cafe would be closed.  While my conceptions of a technologically challenged Russia and the lifestyle people would be living in the third world country before I had arrived had quickly evolved because of the use of technology that a large amount of the everyday people had in their possession.  Walking into the small, poor light rooms that contained usually 10-15 computers, though out dated, they yet seemed to power the Internet and provide me with the capability to stay in touch with the outside world.  Depending on what Internet cafe I was able to go to decided on whether it was broadband or dial up service.  If I was lucky, I would find myself with broadband Internet, sitting next to a teenager who was intensely playing an online game.  At random times the power would go out or the Internet go down and the gamers would start to swear and complain to the cafe operators, while I was just glad I was randomly saving my long emails.  Throughout the rest of the week as I was in the community, going into peoples homes and seeing the varying types of technology and their ability to use it, I saw that a digital divide occurred.  This was happening not only from the standard I was used to in the United States and my ability to use technology but it also was happening among Russians themselves.   The factor of money was often the determining factor in whether the person surrounded themselves with technological devices, but even more prominent was the age factor.  The younger generations of Russians relied more heavily on technology and had a better grasp of how to use it in comparison to their older counterparts.  Cellphones, computers, mp3 players and DVD players were among some of the larger determining factors of whether the individual was technologically up to date or not.  Walking into the corner store or going to the market if an older person was cashier, when you were ready to pay they would pull out from underneath the counter where the register sat a manual counting device, sliding round buttons on several different lines to count how much it would cost you.  But if the person helping you was younger they almost always would go straight to the electronic register.  I even saw on several occasions older customers ask the cashier to use the old fashioned type of counting both for their own understanding of what was happening, but also because they believe it was more accurate and would not screw up.  Most often when I would walk into the local post office, the crowded area would be full of older people, mailing everything from bills to a simple letter.  Not having the ability or opportunity to send it via email, they would use the trusted and true old method.

These examples from my experience while in Russia are found here in the United States, which is not considered a third world country.  The generational gap has given the younger groups an upper hand on technology and its everyday use.  While many have adjusted, it still is not as natural for the older crowd, leaving them behind in the ever growing development of technology and its use, creating the digital divide.

GoldFarming

Imagine playing your favorite video game, and getting paid to do it as well.   A new form of labor called goldfarming is developing in the poorer countries of the world.  While that might sound intriguing to many people, when reality hits this phenomenon of gold farming is a new form of slave labor.  With the advancement of new media technology, goldfarming is the newest business that is connecting individuals, communities and countries.

There are several issues with the act of gold farming or leveling.  First, many gamers and other people look at it as cheating.  Paying someone else to essentially play a game for you or to advance your character is in no way the proper method the game was made or designed for.  People that have money and want to be an advanced player faster can pay for that rank without actually spending anytime playing the game themselves.  Second is the issue of slave labor.  The gold farming is labored out to poorer countries, where labor can be found cheap.  The workers slave behind a computer not making a fair amount of money.  Though they often receive a place to stay, they still need to purchase food, travel and all other expenses, leaving them without the opportunity to save money and build a future.  The facilities are often typical to that of a sweatshop and the work is demanding.  Health issues for those employees are fore coming, like eyesight issues, carpitunnel in the wrist and back issues from sitting for the long shifts.  These factors make the labor that of a sweatshop.  Still with all these issues pointing towards goldfarming as being slave labor, some employed in the field love what they do.  Third factor is that turning virtual goods into a profit for real money.    How do you know how much to charge for something that is virtual?  People are seeing virtual items as more realistic now, believing they are true commodities that can be purchased and owned.  Many still view that virtual items are not real and are not spending their hard earned money for items that they cannot touch, hold or feel.

Henry Jenkins talks of new media and its effect on society, which also applies to the growing phenomenon of goldfarming.  With new media connecting the world, especially by the internet, has given individuals from different countries the opportunity to operate businesses and sell items.  Goldfarming fits perfectly into this because an individual in one country can hire someone in another country to level their character for very cheap in comparison to having to pay for the price of labor with the country they live.  Goldfarming is connecting people, communities and countries, using the new media technology that is breaking the previous barriers that did not allow for such connecting of people.

Playing video games has been taken to a new level.  Why play and advance yourself when you can hire out and have yourself advanced through the game?  None of this would be possible if it were not for new media technology connecting communities and individuals.  But, with this connection, are certain people or communities abusing others throughout the world by developing a new form of slave labor to obtain what they want?