In the golden age of technology that this generation lives in, the topic of privacy comes up frequently. Teachers, parents, and news outlets seem to be shouting about security breaches, offshore hacking, and how everything you do online can be tracked. The issue that arises with this is that this generation doesn’t seem to care.
Anyone who has ever used Facebook, bought something on Amazon, or clicked on an ad from the internet most likely knows their choices and locations are being tracked. There’s nothing more annoying than only seeing ads for the newest pair of yeezys for weeks after looking at one picture of some shoes for fifteen seconds. But we don’t react in the same way our parents do. We don’t swear off using our phones after seeing that Google Maps has all of our locations from the last year stored. In fact, we buy into it. Senior Thomas Gaul shares his view of our shared use of private information in, “It’s kind of our way of paying. Instead of paying for services like google and stuff in money, we’re paying for it in information.” Many high schoolers today share their location with just about everyone on Snapchat. Yes, it may be a little odd, but does it matter?
Many people today are asking themselves, “I’m just one of three-hundred-million people in America, why does the government want my information?” and that deserves investigation. It turns out, the NSA and other government organizations just do not have the resources, money, or time to care enough and spy on every individual across all their devices. The much, much larger threat to your personal privacy are listening devices like the Amazon Alexa found in homes across the country, which are programmed to listen and have the capability to sell that information to marketing companies. This infiltration of technology into our lives looks to be seen everywhere, and honestly, it doesn’t bother us. If everything someone does online is tracked and sold to sell and market products better, it still makes our lives easier, and there’s the whole point of it all. Simplicity.
