Topic B: Choose an issue of importance to you-the issue could be personal, school related, local, political, or international in scope-and write an essay in which you explain the significance of that issue to yourself, your family, your community, or your generation.
The loss of Anoninmity
One thing that continues to shock me is our continuous loss of privacy; everyday a little more erodes and falls off into the encrypted abyss that consists of cyberspace. What really bothers me is how little people seem to take note; most people don't know that every time they click that "Allow Facebook" button on a seamlessly harmless application, they are just selling their personal information to online marketers who can use their information in any way they choose. Anything we do on the internet is monitored, starting from when we check the weather, and ending when we check the final scores in the Rangers v. Cardinals game and shut off the computer. No longer do we have the privacy to do our deepest thinking without the intrusion of someone or something, George Orwell called the loss of our freedom to think privately "Thoughtcrime" in his novel "1984."
For most of my teenage life I have personally experienced just how intruded our privacy has become. My father sells security cameras for a living, and some of his products have become so sophisticated that they can use facial recognition software which searches for matches within Facebook and many other online sites photo databases to find a match. A program of that scale, quite frankly scares the daylight out of me, because I know that someday in the near future it will be impossible to be Anonymous. During my summer internship in the Management Information Services department I saw firsthand how easy it is for someone to find something if they have the "know it all's" to do it, especially if something has been posted on the web it is next to impossible to take it off, which is unfortunately the case for anything posted onto Facebook. If I post anything on the web, I always post it with the full consent that anyone may see it.
Some may argue that the massive injunction of technology into our society is a good thing; sure it has helped lower crime, and made it almost technically impossible to be lost with a smart phone and cellular reception. But is it all worth it? I know it would be hard for me to live one day without my iPhone, even knowing that it tracks and stores my location whereabouts. In the end I know my information means nothing as long as I am just a uniform member of society, but what really scares me is the fact that my children and their future generations won't have the same right and privilege to develop themselves without the watchful eyes of someone else.
The loss of Anoninmity
One thing that continues to shock me is our continuous loss of privacy; everyday a little more erodes and falls off into the encrypted abyss that consists of cyberspace. What really bothers me is how little people seem to take note; most people don't know that every time they click that "Allow Facebook" button on a seamlessly harmless application, they are just selling their personal information to online marketers who can use their information in any way they choose. Anything we do on the internet is monitored, starting from when we check the weather, and ending when we check the final scores in the Rangers v. Cardinals game and shut off the computer. No longer do we have the privacy to do our deepest thinking without the intrusion of someone or something, George Orwell called the loss of our freedom to think privately "Thoughtcrime" in his novel "1984."
For most of my teenage life I have personally experienced just how intruded our privacy has become. My father sells security cameras for a living, and some of his products have become so sophisticated that they can use facial recognition software which searches for matches within Facebook and many other online sites photo databases to find a match. A program of that scale, quite frankly scares the daylight out of me, because I know that someday in the near future it will be impossible to be Anonymous. During my summer internship in the Management Information Services department I saw firsthand how easy it is for someone to find something if they have the "know it all's" to do it, especially if something has been posted on the web it is next to impossible to take it off, which is unfortunately the case for anything posted onto Facebook. If I post anything on the web, I always post it with the full consent that anyone may see it.
Some may argue that the massive injunction of technology into our society is a good thing; sure it has helped lower crime, and made it almost technically impossible to be lost with a smart phone and cellular reception. But is it all worth it? I know it would be hard for me to live one day without my iPhone, even knowing that it tracks and stores my location whereabouts. In the end I know my information means nothing as long as I am just a uniform member of society, but what really scares me is the fact that my children and their future generations won't have the same right and privilege to develop themselves without the watchful eyes of someone else.