Social media and surveillance

Summary

This article is about eroding privacy through the use of technology. It begins with giving the example of a school in Philadelphia with the teachers spying on the students through the installed web cams of laptops provided by the school. This introduces the idea of people being able to spy on people in the safety of their own homes by the Government. The Government want to assure the public its so for our safety from terrorists but spying through the use of technology is illegal and goes against certain laws. Therefore, if they will disobey the laws they set, many others would probably do the same like businesses so customers and society as a whole would be effected.

Opinion on surveillance

Personally, I am bothered by the fact that I am being watched constantly. However, all of the prying eyes can help keep people safe and authorities can sometimes prevent crimes before they take place. For example, terrorists have been caught and arrested in the UK because they were communicating through social media so the Internet Providers were able to see the suspicious messages being sent. Therefore, I think this will and should bother everyone because their privacy is being eroded and it could cause problems in society. Despite this, I believe surveillance can save people or get 'justice' but society don't want to know how that will happen (surveillance).
Furthermore if people have nothing to hide, then surveillance shouldn't bother them because they aren't being watched (by Government specifically).  Therefore, I believe its a consequence with the amount of technology is in society and it won't stop people from purchasing the latest phones, televisions or consoles. A threat to this would be hackers as this would make it easier for them to get access of the cameras in devices and steal personal information and gain access to places online they shouldn't (identity theft).

Task

The internet may be killing our culture because people are able to research other cultures and ways of living so certain cultures and traditions could possibly change. Another way could be that we rely upon the internet for research too much (dependency theory). This means that we don't think for ourselves and or follow tradition (from parents) so can be influenced by the media changing our ideologies. Finally, we are all too engrossed into technology that not many people are using their initiative. This means that we expect change to occur but won't participate in the process of change. 

Pornography could influence people's behaviour (young people) because they may refer to the things they have witnessed with friends. This means that they may believe men and women act in the way they see on porn which isn't correct. Therefore, they may have sexual intercourse early on in their lives and could possibly have a child early on. This could impact their lives if they have a child in their teens because their are still in education.

Academic paper, online study, BBC news, film review and Wikipedia. This is the order of accuracy.

When I use the internet, I would use my common sense to suggest whether something sounds true or not. For example, if I went onto Wikipedia and it said Lewis Hamilton is a footballer I know this isn't true. From then on I probably wouldn't read the rest of the autobiography. Therefore, I believe I have taught myself not to believe everything online but with the help from friends, family and teachers.

The internet can be a problem because it erodes our privacy because we give away our personal details like name, credit history, medical details etc. This means that an ICT system would be able to generate all of an individual's details to suggest the type of person they are.