The world has become like an eerily banal dystopian novel. Things look the same on the surface, but they are not. With no apparent boundaries on how algorithms can use and abuse the data that’s being collected about us, the potential for it to control our lives is ever-growing.
Our drivers’ licenses, our keys, our debit and credit cards are all important parts of our lives. Even our social media accounts could soon become crucial components of being fully functional members of society. Now that we live in this world, we must figure out how to maintain our connection with society without surrendering to automated processes that we can neither see nor control.
Well, and whose fault is that, huh? Who dived head-first into smartphones, Facebook, Twitter and IoT? Was there ever a real need for the majority of the population to make smartphone a part of their body, turn Facebook into main outlet for self-expression and install “smart” light bulbs at home?
No.
I bet over 90% of us did it only because they were lured into it by shiny ads and because “all my friends are doing it”. Without ever really thinking of why they are doing it.
That just describes 95% of the human experience. Not just technology.
Few individuals are capable of operating outside the monkey-see monkey-do paradigm. And of those the evil ones get to be in charge of a lot of things, and the good ones get burned at the stake.
I read something the other day that was encouraging.. It was an article that talked about how the younger generations are actually starting to turn away from social media. It contained a lot of quotes from young people which can basically be summed up as they’re turned off by all the trolling, bullying, and the sense of social media being an anchor that they have to drag around and weighs them down. If things continue along the path put forth in the article, social media as we know it will be a trending thing for a couple decades and then people largely moving on & away. I hope that holds true.
Social media is here to stay in one form or another. It has a place in todays society but thankfully the `new shine` is starting to wear off. The world, and other people, should be experienced first hand.
I’m one of those. I got away from Facebook and the rest because of the relentless attempts to spam me with superfluous crap, even when I shut off those particular notification settings. The only one I retain now is Twitter, and that only because it’s a convenient way to follow news that doesn’t get much coverage otherwise. It’s an odd phenomenon, but the most active social media addicts I know are in their 40’s to 60’s and not the younger generation I would have expected.
I’m fairly certain that’s because younger people tend to still have ways to contact their circle of friends and family, whereas the 40-60 year olds still care enough to want to try to contact old friends and family that probably moved out into the world. Then you have the 60+ people who probably are just old enough to not give a crap anymore. I think I’m old at heart, ’cause I don’t give a crap myself!
Every single day I see countless people using their cellphones while driving. The biggest offenders *by far* are women who appear to be in their 40’s, followed by people in general 40-60. These are people who are full grown adults that should know better. People likely with children and who should be aware of safety risks. There’s simply no excuse yet for some reason the urge to constantly update social media feeds is too great and all common sense falls by the wayside. I used to see a lot more teens doing it but not anymore. It is a very odd phenomenon indeed. Odd and pathetic.
To relieve the stress and “coldness” brought on by the information age where people become numbers and are moved around like bits of data, Equifax announces…
The Shockwave Rider, and learn. It’s an old, old problem.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shockwave_Rider
Orf.
experiment in Social Engineering. It is being used to elicit extreme responses to often trivial things.
I for one, will never sign up to any social media site. I frankly have better things to do with my life. I know from firsthand experience what bullying can do to people. It is often not nice and sometimes fatal. Do we really want a society there people are urged to kill themselves via social media posts?
You choose.
has people been boldly predicting apocalypses and dooms days. watch any scifi movie, it is usually a dystopian one. but looking through history outside of a few warring periods, people’s lives have mostly been getting better measured by life expectancy or gbp per capita.
every generation has their “Dystopian” fear: from industrial revolution fears of the dickons era to drugs/crime fear of 80s to Y2K of 90s. i think the doomsday talk really has more to do with the age of their authors than reality. once people reach a certain age, they seems have only the imagination for worst. the same fear is usually not shared by younger people. the kids today prob sees the possible applications of IoT, big Data and AI, where as we (ppl in 30s) see invasion of privacy and freedom of speech. where did it go wrong for us?
razor,
So we need to recognize that things can and do get worse for some groups.
I’m not going to make it all “doom and gloom”, you could still make the case that most people are better off today than 100 years ago. Hopefully it’s just a temporary decline. However if the gaps between social classes continue to widen (ie lost wages, loosing health care, loosing retirement benefits, lower life expectancy, less mobility, downfall of unions, etc), then it will be very hard to continue making that case.
Edited 2017-09-14 22:29 UTC
Much has to do also with market globalization.
Many have to resort to living and working abroad having to leave their families and friends behind, thus only keeping contact with them via online tools.
IoT is still in its infancy though. Hardly anything works as designed without you finding an easier way to do it manually.
Nevertheless it will be marketed to no end simply because the stakes are higher then ever. At some point we will either face a colossal failure or huge success.
I’m not sure either which situation I prefer ..
Edited 2017-09-15 12:46 UTC
Free Software is the only answer to the encroaching surveillance state. It should be obvious to anyone who cares about freedom and privacy anymore, there’s only one choice and that’s Free Software. Doesn’t matter if it’s AROS, FreeBSD or Linux. If it doesn’t respect your user freedoms it won’t help you.
Edited 2017-09-15 02:49 UTC
Not Free Software… Open Source Software. Free software does not help the situation in any way, if it’s still closed source.
Rokas,
Playing devil’s advocate, just because platforms are FOSS, it doesn’t strictly mean manufacturers aren’t trampling on owner’s interests anyways. For example: many of the freedom aspects of linux have not carried over into android, which despite running linux, can be as invasive as proprietary platforms.
Huge swaths of embedded controllers running linux offer owners no way to go in and change or inspect the system. The point is, merely running linux isn’t enough to ensure one’s freedoms, one needs system access too. Sadly this isn’t happening in the new embedded markets where linux has shown strong growth.
Edited 2017-09-15 07:35 UTC