blog post 9/14/18

Option 2

Kline defines technology in 4 different ways. The first definition is, technology is things made by humans that don’t occur naturally on earth. The second definition is, how humans make things that don’t occur naturally on earth. The third definition is, knowledge, technique, know-how, and methodology. The fourth definition is, a system combining hardware and people to accomplish tasks that extended human capabilities, this includes knowledge, skill, and culture.

Technogenesis is the idea that culture is always a part of technology.

Data can be collected on anything, however the issue with that is how we analyze and interpret this data. An important point to remember when analyzing data is that correlation does not equal causation, meaning, just because two things have similar trends, it does not mean they are related. This relates to technogenesis  because recently data collection has been a big topic of discussion in society. This is because not only does the government collect data on all of us, but so do all the websites we visit and all the stores we shop at.

Companies use data collection to sell it to advertisers so they can better individualize their ad campaigns. Companies are able to do this because as a culture, we decided that we wanted the internet and it’s services to be free. However, companies still need to make money. Therefore, companies such as Twitter, Google, and Facebook use data collection to make ads that pop up more personalized and make up more likely to buy whatever product the ad is trying to sell. Another recent development from data collection is you can now pay for websites to be ad free. For example, Youtube has a subscription called YoutubeRed, where you pay a monthly fee and have no ads. While this seems great, whether or not ads pop up, Youtube still tracks you so they can recommend videos that you may like.

Personally, I have no issue with companies collecting my data because it seems quite harmless. If all their doing is selling it to advertisers, that’s fine with me. However, this is not the case. Companies that collect this data also sell it to the government and other outside organizations. My question is, why does the government care what I like to buy at Target? So not only does the government track your location, who you call, where you work, and what you do in your free time, they also track where you like to shop and what you’ve been buying.

I think because we’ve been so conditioned to data collection, not many people raise questions about it. However, now that we’ve been discussing it in class, I have so many questions. What is the government doing with all our data? Who has access to this information? Can the government also sell our data to companies? My biggest concern with data collection is the fact that they track our location. One of my biggest fears is being kidnapped, so the thought that if my data fell into the wrong hands, they could easily find me and kidnap me.

I’m curious to find out more about data collection and I will definitely be doing some of my own research to try and answer my many questions.

I included this video because I thought it was interesting that people are more scared of the government violating their personal data rather than private companies and I agree, I feel more threatened by the government.