Friday, September 28, 2007

Week 2: Exercise #4 - Online Safety and Privacy-Contradiction In Terms?

Although I've heard about online safety and privacy, I've pretty much always felt "safety" and "privacy" are oxymorons when paired with "online." The medium is a constant reminder to me when using it.

"Instant messaging" seems awfully similar to me to people who are "just talking off the top of my head," or "shooting their mouth off" about a situation without thinking first. [For myself, I almost always, always benefit when I think first before talking]. I don't know that people can communicate that clearly when writing quickly.

Other constant reminders:
-bouncy advertisments on nearly every public site that seem a little too desperate to catch my attention and sell me things. The way they so actively pursue on-line customers and their personal contact info always reminds me to be careful and makes me feel like I'm running from a flock of panhandlers.

-receiving a bunch of e-mails while I'm in the process of writing one. I'm in the middle of expressing a series of thoughts while a series of those from other people drops in out of the sky.

The "reply-to-a-reply-to-a- reply" e-mail phenomenon often seems to me like a crowd of people all talking out loud on their cell phones at the same time.

But then I also figure it goes with getting used to all the new technology, tools and related social interactions. [new tools are fun! new tools are exciting!]

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