COM 125 BAZZAR!!

Saturday, March 10, 2007

"Singapore is a safe place, relax la, no worries. No one will be that sick to watch you lor, not like you are a celebrity or what." Yes, a very typical Singaporean mindset. Of course, most of us did consider the danger of having our privacy invaded, but we often brushed that thought away, thinking, “So many people out there, I won't so suay be the next one to be watched la.” Well, we are wrong. Ever since the Tammy incident, we know that our privacy could easily be exposed to the outside world. It is no longer safe to keep your personal information in mobile gadgets anymore because you never know when it will end up in the wrong hands or overseen by somebody else. Now, even the internet itself is not privacy-guaranteed. We do not know what awaits us online and most of the time, we’d be taken back by surprise when we find out that our little space are being invaded.

Before we take measures about protecting our privacy, we got to start off by understanding what privacy stands for and how important it is to reserve our rights of being watched by anyone out there. According to Wikipedia, privacy is the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of the public view or to control the flow of information about themselves (Wikipedia, 2007). There is always a limit on how much information one is going to provide to another. I know that psychologists often tell us that it’s important to reveal yourself to friends, family and lovers in stages, but few boundaries still ought to remain. (Privacy Lost, 2006).

Due to the advancement of technology, I guess that not many people care about exposing themselves to other people. For example, there was a study done on the increase in vanity amongst college students. Professor Jean Twenge claimed that most of the students have the “I am special, look at me” mentality and that's why they are not afraid or shy to broadcast themselves in Youtube (Associated Press, 2007). Many people, of course, don't care if they embarrass themselves before strangers on the internet. It is now commonplace on a website to reveal hobbies, favorite foods and music, and pictures of children, in an effort to create an illusion of intimacy (The Naked Crowd, 2004).

Today, people obtain intimacy and trust by self-revelation rather than by shared exp

eriences or fixed social status. They try to prove their trustworthiness by revealing details of their personal lives to prove that they have nothing to hide before a crowd (The Naked Crowd, 2004). I personally feel that it is true to a certain extent. For myself, I’m actually quite a private person. I only reveal information to the people I trust as I’m well aware of the fact that not everyone could keep a secret. Some might even threaten or use your weaknesses against you one day. By being alert and aware, the chance of my privacy being invaded is not high, just as long as no one plays a prank and hid a camera like one of those candid camera shows.

As quoted from Jeffery Rosen, “the age of the internet forced us to increasingly interact with strangers whom we will never meet face-to-face” (The Naked Crowd, 2004). Normally, I used to reveal myself mor

e to people I knew online rather than my friends. It is strange but I always feel that by telling your problems to a stranger whom you know you’d never meet, your secret is safe with him or her. However, as I grow older, I learnt that some things are meant to be kept to myself. Though Singapore always encourages free speech and stuff, it’s not completely freedom out there. There was this case a while ago where two students were prosecuted for discriminating and humiliating a certain race group in their blogs. As we all know, a blog is supposed to be an online diary where we can choose to keep it private and pen down our most personal thoughts. I relied on blogging a lot since I’m too lazy to write in a diary book. I used to blog a lot in the past and not many of my friends knew that blog address. I wrote a lot based on my personal thoughts, and actually felt comfortable exposing myself as I never thought of it to be exposed to millions of internet users out there. However, after I heard about this incident, I knew that my privacy could be at stake of being invaded, thus, I ended up closing down the blog. Despite having a new blog now, I am unable to bring myself to pen down my inner thoughts just like before. With the knowledge that someone might read it, I felt uncomfortable exposing myself completely.

After reading through the articles and based on personal experience, I

feel that it is true that many people simply do not care about their privacy being invaded. No one really bother to take action to do anything just as long as it does not affect their lives. The danger of being watched is no one will know when, how, where and who is watching them. You will be caught by surprise when you realized your personal information is being leaked out. It is crucial that one has got to protect his rights as an individual and keep his most personal information out of reach to anyone. Be alert, don't be......the next Tammy.

REFERENCES:

Privacy (2007). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 10.45 p.m, March 9, 2007 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy#Internet_privacy

Sullivan, B. (2006, October 17) "Privacy lost: Does anybody care?" Retrieved 3.45 p.m, March 9, 2007 from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221095/print/1/displaymode/1098/

Study: Vanity on the rise among college students. (2007, February 27). In Associated Press. Retrieved 4.30p.m, March 9, 2007 from http://www.cnn.com/2007/EDUCATION/02/27/self.centered.students.ap/index.html

Rosen, J. (2004, July 19). "The Naked crowd". Retrieved 2.30p.m, March 9, 2007 from http://www.spiked-online.com/Printable/0000000CA5FF.htm

11:42 AMi hate HOMEWORKY

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