“IMAGINE a world suddenly devoid of doors. None in your home, on dressing rooms, on the entrance to the local pub or even on restroom stalls at concert halls.”-Kate Murphy
This is Kate Murphy’s opening sentence in her intuitive essay, We Want Privacy but Can’t Stop Sharing, she wrote in the New York Times last month. This sentence gave me a crazy feeling of worry, (if we didn’t have these things)- a devoid of doors in these private areas would be devastating and uncomfortable. She does a great job of painting a vivid picture of understanding what it would look like if we didn’t have privacy. Murphy mentions many researchers in this essay who are working to understand privacy online and offline experiences, and found that even when people believed that their privacy was being violated, gave off the effects of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. In addition, she talks about our necessary need to share, and the ways the internet experience assists and abuses it. People are so scared these days that jobs will criticize them for what they post. She also reports that due to the data mining of social media by advertisers, many users have become more cautious about how much they share online, and this may unintentionally help social relationships. Do we not trust each other so much that every kind of electronic interaction must be watched over by others? Can the threats of terrorism and crime really warrant monitoring everyone? Or is the cliché that if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear apply? (Murphy 2014). It’s hard to debate the value of privacy, if we are just loosely posting things about ourselves. My question is: “What really constitutes as “Private Information? “
Murphy, K. (2014, October 4). We want privacy, but can’t stop sharing. The New York
Times. Retrieved from nytimes.com
Why it’s too Easy to Dismiss Technology Critics
Arguably, I think that we as a people are on an “automated-craze” we do rely too much on machines to do too much for us—This relates to the Carr article Is Google Making Us Stupid and my own seed article I am doing for my research paper Are Digital Devices and Social Media Redefining Human Connection? I’m interested to know what holds the future with human abilities, concerning loss of how to do things, possibly, think with common sense, since we have the computer to fill in our blanks just by inputting 3 words in the search engine. This also relates to Carr’s All Can Be Lost: The Risk of Putting Our Knowledge in the Hands of Machines. I can surely relate to the part in this article when the contributor speaks of how many times I’ve relied on GPS and it has failed me several times. I also agree with the statement, “The presence of automated tools makes it harder for physicians to be meaningfully present to patients. The attention they need to give to computers leads to multi-tasking, with so much shifting going on that the technology can act like a “third party” in the exam room” (2014). It does become a disruption. My doctor used to look at me in my face- to talk to me, now, she is looking down on her laptop while talking which in my case, makes the visit feel very impersonal. No, I don’t expect her to spend her whole day evaluating me and have “girl-talk” but I do expect her to give me her undivided attention and spend more than 2 minutes with me.
In this his article, Evan Selinger, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a contributor of Forbes Magazine talks about understanding Carr’s point of view on automation and relying on it to the point of human uselessness (If that’s even a word.) Selinger does state that he disagrees with Carr’s conclusions aren’t being supported by all the references claims to have (Selinger 2014) but on the other hand, disagrees with LA Times, Maria Bustillos who gave an acrimonious review of Carr’s book, The Glass Cage: Automation and Us. In her review she bullied Carr, calling him an “Information Age’s chief scaredy-cats” and characterized him as “paranoid” with computers. Selinger speaks of overlooking as he calls it “moral hazards”, by trying to make everything so easy, fast and “look at the pros and cons of automation through the lens of whether some results are better?”(2014) I agree with Carr when he says, “ People are relying on machines and software to do things for us so much that we “ignore or discount other information sources, including our own eyes and ears,” (Carr, 2013, The Atlantic blog) and computers are weakening our awareness. On the other hand, machines help us become more productive in the workplace and provide us more time to do some strategic planning for other innovative ideas for the company. However, a computer cannot think logically about situations that occur in everyday life, it just performs the duties that are programmed into them that a human has to provide. In turn, we also have to seek innovative technology so that we can intelligently speak about them and understand what they have to benefit or not.
Overall, the contributor does have a good point when he says, “What happens when folks who grow accustomed to writing in this environment of ever-available digital assistance have to write handwritten notes?(2014) What do you think?
Selinger, E. (2014). Why it’s too easy to dismiss critics: Or, the fallacies leading a
reviewer to call Nicholas Carr paranoid. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/
Carr, Nicholas."All Can Be Lost: The Risk of Putting Our Knowledge in the Hands
of Machines." The Atlantic. November 2013.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/the-great forgetting/309516/.
This is Kate Murphy’s opening sentence in her intuitive essay, We Want Privacy but Can’t Stop Sharing, she wrote in the New York Times last month. This sentence gave me a crazy feeling of worry, (if we didn’t have these things)- a devoid of doors in these private areas would be devastating and uncomfortable. She does a great job of painting a vivid picture of understanding what it would look like if we didn’t have privacy. Murphy mentions many researchers in this essay who are working to understand privacy online and offline experiences, and found that even when people believed that their privacy was being violated, gave off the effects of anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. In addition, she talks about our necessary need to share, and the ways the internet experience assists and abuses it. People are so scared these days that jobs will criticize them for what they post. She also reports that due to the data mining of social media by advertisers, many users have become more cautious about how much they share online, and this may unintentionally help social relationships. Do we not trust each other so much that every kind of electronic interaction must be watched over by others? Can the threats of terrorism and crime really warrant monitoring everyone? Or is the cliché that if you’ve nothing to hide, you’ve got nothing to fear apply? (Murphy 2014). It’s hard to debate the value of privacy, if we are just loosely posting things about ourselves. My question is: “What really constitutes as “Private Information? “
Murphy, K. (2014, October 4). We want privacy, but can’t stop sharing. The New York
Times. Retrieved from nytimes.com
Why it’s too Easy to Dismiss Technology Critics
Arguably, I think that we as a people are on an “automated-craze” we do rely too much on machines to do too much for us—This relates to the Carr article Is Google Making Us Stupid and my own seed article I am doing for my research paper Are Digital Devices and Social Media Redefining Human Connection? I’m interested to know what holds the future with human abilities, concerning loss of how to do things, possibly, think with common sense, since we have the computer to fill in our blanks just by inputting 3 words in the search engine. This also relates to Carr’s All Can Be Lost: The Risk of Putting Our Knowledge in the Hands of Machines. I can surely relate to the part in this article when the contributor speaks of how many times I’ve relied on GPS and it has failed me several times. I also agree with the statement, “The presence of automated tools makes it harder for physicians to be meaningfully present to patients. The attention they need to give to computers leads to multi-tasking, with so much shifting going on that the technology can act like a “third party” in the exam room” (2014). It does become a disruption. My doctor used to look at me in my face- to talk to me, now, she is looking down on her laptop while talking which in my case, makes the visit feel very impersonal. No, I don’t expect her to spend her whole day evaluating me and have “girl-talk” but I do expect her to give me her undivided attention and spend more than 2 minutes with me.
In this his article, Evan Selinger, Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a contributor of Forbes Magazine talks about understanding Carr’s point of view on automation and relying on it to the point of human uselessness (If that’s even a word.) Selinger does state that he disagrees with Carr’s conclusions aren’t being supported by all the references claims to have (Selinger 2014) but on the other hand, disagrees with LA Times, Maria Bustillos who gave an acrimonious review of Carr’s book, The Glass Cage: Automation and Us. In her review she bullied Carr, calling him an “Information Age’s chief scaredy-cats” and characterized him as “paranoid” with computers. Selinger speaks of overlooking as he calls it “moral hazards”, by trying to make everything so easy, fast and “look at the pros and cons of automation through the lens of whether some results are better?”(2014) I agree with Carr when he says, “ People are relying on machines and software to do things for us so much that we “ignore or discount other information sources, including our own eyes and ears,” (Carr, 2013, The Atlantic blog) and computers are weakening our awareness. On the other hand, machines help us become more productive in the workplace and provide us more time to do some strategic planning for other innovative ideas for the company. However, a computer cannot think logically about situations that occur in everyday life, it just performs the duties that are programmed into them that a human has to provide. In turn, we also have to seek innovative technology so that we can intelligently speak about them and understand what they have to benefit or not.
Overall, the contributor does have a good point when he says, “What happens when folks who grow accustomed to writing in this environment of ever-available digital assistance have to write handwritten notes?(2014) What do you think?
Selinger, E. (2014). Why it’s too easy to dismiss critics: Or, the fallacies leading a
reviewer to call Nicholas Carr paranoid. Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/
Carr, Nicholas."All Can Be Lost: The Risk of Putting Our Knowledge in the Hands
of Machines." The Atlantic. November 2013.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/the-great forgetting/309516/.