Social Media Surveillance

1) In the articles,"Could You Become a Mean Meme" and "Are You Being Watched?" both by Kristin Lewis. It talks about all the advantages and disadvantage of using social media. In "Could You Become a Mean Meme" it states an advantage, " The great thing about these platforms is that they allow us to participate in eachothers lives by sharing moments both big and small-In real time" (Lewis 13). Instead of being in the real world talking face to face or share a big or small moment in your life, you can do it straightly off your phone or almost any device you have. On the other hand, there is also disadvantages.

In Brian Trent’s article, Technology and Tomorrow: A Challenge to Liberty, Trent describes how electronic surveillance has increased and how it will continue to spread amongst people. In Craig Silverman’s article, Smile, Big Brother’s watching, Silverman explains that the amount of time and surveillance that corporations conduct over employees is increasing, but having some negative effects. Both of these articles explain how electronic surveillance will increase so much, that almost everyone will be able to be seen when not in the open [monitored]. In this essay I’ll be going more in depth to describe both articles and I’ll explain whether I agree with their arguments and why.

While Tapscott argues that we share “almost minute-by-minute data” (119) about ourselves, I do not see people sharing as much as he claims we do. People like the author of Public Parts, Jeff Jarvis, may say, “‘I’m a public man...My life is an open book’” (Tapscott 117), but I highly doubt that Mr. Jarvis has time to post every moment of his life online. He does share major life events in his book Public Parts, albeit he wrote the book in order to promote sharing. That is not quite the minute everyday details Tapscott surmises to be floating around the Internet.

In Sherman Alexie’s poem “The Facebook Sonnet” Alexie brings up a controversy, over all social media because it absorbs society into the depths of dark unknowns and prevents physical face to face communication. Even though Facebook allows people to stay up to date with friends, whether they be new or deep-rooted, the platform tears its users away from substantial social interaction with others. People can connect to the world by the click of the mouse and know what is going on at any given time. Social media requires ones everlasting attention, and the addiction is almost comparable to that of a cigarette, one cannot give it up and is always thinking about when one can check it again. People become so caught up in trying to perceive what everyone else is doing, they forget that they have a reality to live and fail to maintain real relationships. “The Facebook Sonnet” belittles the social media platform by emphasizing how obsessed society is with making themselves look perfect for the screen. One is either gripping to their past or obsessing over the present.

This paper will cover the pros and cons of government surveillance. It will cover different views on the issue such as ethical, social, and global impact. This paper will try to answer the question of how government surveillance on social media can impact local citizens in the United States

Most people agree that social networking in this new era tends to make people overshare everything, as Mary Katherine Ham in "We Shall Overshare" argues that the newer generation share way too much of their personal life online. In addition, author Brent Baughman in "Growing Older in the Digital Age: An Exercise in Egotism" argues that the digital age hasn't improved people but rather introduced egotism through social networking to the newer generations. As a result people have lost all etiquette through social networking such as Facebook; according to Elizabeth Stone in her article "Grief In The age of Facebook" people lose their shame of grief and mourning's of a loved one. Social networking is transforming our behavior in negative ways

The world we live in today has a saying “If you didn’t take pictures, it was like you were never there.” The passage “When We Save Every Memory, We Forget Which Ones Are Special,” by Dara Horn, describes how technology has made it easy for everyone to save any and almost every memory through social media. People might want to capture every memory for the fear of being forgotten or for the fact that they will be able to look back on every memory of their lives. A problem with people saving every memory of their lives is that when you look back at them, it will be hard to distinguish the treasured memories from the trash because of the huge amounts of captured memories. I believe that the idea presented here is that the abuse of modern technology has driven us to try to show ourselves to the world through social media, making the photo of ourselves more like a resume rather than actual memories we cherish.

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.

He puts it best by using the example of the tourist who has waited his whole life to see the canyon. Once he gets there, he is only comparing what he sees in front of him with what he has seen in other places like postcards and pictures. He says that we do not appreciate the sheer vastness or the enormity of what has been laid in front of us but instead spend our time taking pictures and judging our experiences by how many shots we take. Daily, I fight a battle with social media. The most prominent example is not getting wrapped up in taking pictures and up loading them for others to see and “Like”. I make a conscious effort to make sure my life does not consist of getting validation from others about my thoughts or my actions. There is a fine line between sharing and sharing for authentication. This causes people to give others the ability to assign value to a person’s experiences.

Within Jenna Wortham's article, "Turn Off the Phone (and the Tension)," Wortham discusses the impact that social media possesses, in which Wortham believes that technology is responsible for shaping people's lives negatively. From Wortham's previous experiences, she shares a moment in her life that made her realize that people often compare their lives to others excessively- one of the reasons why people have social media attachment issues. Wortham also expresses how social media users brag about their lives being better than others through exaggerated posts- something that shouldn't be encouraged. With effort to resolve this issue, Wortham considers and suggests Mr. Hofmann's advice to readers: go screenless for a certain

Have you ever wondered if your personal online activities could affect your life? Many people search and share their private lives on different social media sites. In Dorothy Nixon’s “Gone with the Windows”, and Wei Du’s “Job Candidates and Facebook” both authors share how technology brings draw backs to individual lives. Many disadvantages occur when technology is misused by people who do not consider the long term effects of being online.

The use of surveillance is becoming increasingly evident around the world. Surveillance is carried out in many different forms from simple methods such as video surveillance to more complex methods such as call and browser monitoring. Although it might seem that surveillance is undeniably convenient when pursuing a criminal or preventing a terrorist attack, it is often misused and many are beginning to question why there

A photograph, painting, canvas, or drawing today is not the same as it was a decade ago. Technology has evolved to the point where we can photoshop a person into a picture, enlarge a person’s butt, or even whiten people’s teeth. At what point do those technological advances cross a line? With social media ranging from Facebook and Twitter to Instagram and Tumblr, do these media sites promote egotistical behavior? In January of 2013, John Paul Titlow discusses some of the disadvantages and advantages that Instagram has in his essay: “#Me: Instagram Narcissism and the Scourge of the Selfie” that was posted on a website called ReadWrite. Although Instagram was primarily created to simply share pictures, it has evolved to do much more than that. Some businesses use it to advertise, some people use it to share their art, but then there are some people use it to flaunt their own personal lives in the form of pictures. Titlow acknowledges that Instagram is a desirable way to share art and diverse imagery, but additionally acknowledges that it can be a place where one can promote their own self-popularity. He explains that Instagram has become remarkably important in people’s lives to the point that they cannot view life past those Instagram likes (Titlow). Ultimately, Titlow succeeds in emphasizing the issues that Instagram has created by reason of the way he expresses his text, while furthermore expressing who the audience of his essay is, and by making his overall purpose clear.

In the modern world there have been a lot of technological advances within societies. Technology concerns about security and surveillance has changed the thoughts of people. This surveillance technology consist of spying video cameras, CCTV security and surveillance cameras, surveillance electronic communications, face recognition and many others. Some people think this technology is okay while others carry a different view.  These people feel that it is an invasion of privacy, especially when it is in a public place. Use of surveillance technology are impinging on our privacy as they are affecting student moral, privacy at workplace, behavior of people, life

More recently than in years past, digital technology and social media have grown to become a part of our everyday lives. The recent rise in those who own smartphones allows this everyday use of digital technology and social networking to be easier than ever before. At any time and any place, we have the ability to “socialize” with nearly anyone—even celebrities who have no idea most of us even exist. The continuous consumption of digital media has altered once personal face-to-face communication to just that, digital. More and more people seem to be living in what Sonia Maasik and Jack Solomon call “The Cloud”. “The Cloud” is a seemingly alternate universe of which communication is altered from personal to digital. This universe has led to debates over whether or not these online communities are real or whether social media is actually social. Various digital media sources also encourage users to create individual identities, of which may or may not actually be real. It seems as though our reliance on digital technology and social media have allowed the determination of certain aspects of our lives. Although social media allows us to connect with nearly anyone at any time, Americans have taken advantage of its use, and their attention has been drawn away from real life interactions to digital ones. The ramifications of such influences reflect the hidden insecurities of Americans and, ironically, emphasize our inclination to boast about ourselves by allowing others to see the