One of my favorite lines from Men In Black is when Tommy Lee Jones is giving the speech about what to expect when you join the MIB. He said, "People, for the most part, don't have a clue. They don't want one, or need one either. They're happy-they think they have a good bead on things." No truer words are spoken. I believe this is the larger percent that are being catered to. The status quo being the everyday Jane's and Joe's who bust ass daily to come home to family, dinner, and a few hours of tv before bed. This is where advertising captures them and takes the consumer on a journey to a fantasy world of tight blouses delivering cold beer, men who smell like the ocean sailing away with the women they love, and families squabbling over minutes on a prehistoric cellphone plan.
Technology is akin to the Sasquatch. It's a big, ugly animal that attracts devoted fans and staunch disbelievers. It's had money thrown at it to be searched and studied. It seems impossible to trace, yet we still have people out there who think they've got the image of Bigfoot. With all the hullabaloo about scams across the board, some efforts have been made to clear the air. Recent studies have been shown that to really sell a product, you need to engage the consumer and earn your way into their hearts. not leaving them feeling unappreciated and worthless. I can only hope that common sense prevails for the commonwealth. Hindsight may be 20/20, but certain immediate images in our mirrors are still larger than they appear.
You provided great examples and references that exemplify the relationship the majority of our society has with technology. There are so many of us who willingly publicize personal information, especially on the internet. However, as you mentioned, advertisers have become more efficiently deceptive over time. More than often, we make ourselves vulnerable without even knowing that we're the ones doing it. The article regarding the elimination of the Facebook setting is alarming. Now, any person with a Facebook account possesses the capability to access your page, which will display your profile picture even if it is set to private. This is a major change. Facebook is an accessible and international network. People on the other side of the world can locate your profile with the click of a button. As time has progressed and technological innovation has increased, the interdependency established between social media and society has only bolstered. As such, the manipulation and the deception of today will only increase tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteI really like what you had to say here! We definitely didn't know what we were getting ourselves into with the internet. It just keeps growing and growing into an even bigger more intricate thing. Your analogy about the internet world being equivalent to Sasquatch was brilliant and fabulous. It's true. Everyone has their own view on it. Some believe it's a huge deal, others not so much. Some think that think it exists, others don't. Many have their own image to this creature.
ReplyDeleteI think we as a culture are headed into this deep, black hole with privacy and advertising. I think that we all this craze, and the idea of never being satisfied, and always seeking more and more ways to reach the consumer and make them more "comfortable" will get us to a point of no return. Boundaries apparently don't exist online, and there is something very wrong with that.
I love your quote from Men In Black. I completely agree. It truly seems that people are completely satisfied with living ignorant lives. I realize that ignorant is a strong word but it is also accurate. People refuse to take personal responsibility for the world that we live in. People feel that they can continue to just be bystanders and enjoy whatever benefits they can gather. They refuse to take active ownership on how they influence the system or how the system is actually influencing them.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed how you demonstrated that over time how the internet has changed and it changed for the bad concerning privacy. The internet used to be called information superhighway and it was believed to create lots of opportunity for people to gather knowledge at their fingertips without having to leave home. Over time it has become a source of entertainment and also many websites have been created to keep people in touch like Facebook. It is not right that Facebook takes the right away from users to have control of their privacy. Since the use of the internet has changed information should be given to users of the dangers of it and the dangers of privacy.
ReplyDeleteInsia Ali
ReplyDeleteI love how you pointed out that being bombarded by advertisements was something that we steered ourselves into. Although we might have did our part to decrease the amounts of paper sent in advertisements in our mailbox, by having advertisements emailed to us we have opened the chapter to privacy. Because liking a particular product or “+1 googling” a product enables your friends and family to see what you are interested in, I feel like we are exposing and exploiting ourselves. Social sites are readily taking advantage of our preferences. This will lead us into a very dark abyss of basically ending up with no privacy at all.