We often talk about the liberating features of technology such as the ability to communicate from nearly anywhere in the world through text, video or audio. Perhaps aspects that aren’t related quite as much are the limitations imposed by technology today such as the intrusion of privacy, lack of personal freedom when having to communicate off-work hours, and the enormous amount of time taken up when technology doesn’t work as it’s supposed to. Let’s you through a few of these to establish the limitations that technology can impose on our daily lives.
Privacy, ‘Shmivacy
There is a trend amongst people having the need to join a social network, i.e. Facebook, and then realizing that a lot of their personal information is exposed to the public. Facebook does provide controls that enable certain information, such as your birthdate, to remain hidden. But the intrusion of privacy isn’t just to your birthdate, it extends to all the posts you put on Facebook as well as any likes you have done and when people tag you. Again, there are controls for these, but frankly those controls are cumbersome and hard to use. People can have a field day in looking up all your information by just going through your Facebook account. The limitation imposed here is that you cannot share information with your selected friends without others knowing about it.
Limitations are also abundant in the devices we use daily in terms of privacy concerns. For example, NSA has been reported to have been spying on innocent civilians in order to collect voice, data, and usage trends from the smartphones we use daily. It has also been reported that the microphones on our smartphones can be turned on without us knowing, and an obvious one will be the location tracking that is used by our geo-mapping software like Google Maps. For anyone trying cover their trails, it just becomes even more difficult with today’s technology.
On-Call 24/7
Aside from the privacy concerns imposed by today’s technology, is the ability to have a peaceful dinner or watch a movie to relax. With smartphones it’s becoming increasingly annoying having to respond to calls, or texting, or emailing during private moments. I know some people who have smartphones but leave it off so people don’t disturb them. This faction in society may even ridicule technology and not see the benefits of it because they are haunted 24/7 by the need to communicate all of the time. Have you ever had a time when your replying to an e-mail and another pops into your inbox with an urgent response required; then when you reply to the second one, another one pops in? Technology has just excellerated the pace by which we communicate and, figuratively, has made the world turn faster.
It’s Alive!
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/nsa-uses-smartphone-apps-to-track-people-snowden-docs-suggest-1.2512957
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