Just 8 short years later, on January 9th, 2007, the keyboard that had seemed so innovative and new, suddenly became out dated, when Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, unveiled the IPhone .
Aside from calling and texting, the iPhone could be used to listen to music, watch videos, browse the Web, find directions on Google Maps and watch videos on you tube - all of a sudden, you could have so much more than just a phone !
So far, this lecture had left me with an appreciation of how fast technology had moved on, over the last 10 years alone - the whole business of how we communicate, and who with, had taken massive strides - and how much we take this technology for granted, and use it without a second thought.
Then Dan announced the title of the next section of the lecture - 'The Book that reads you' - and I had my eyes well and truly opened ! We use a lot of this technology to seek out information about, and communicate with the world and people around us- but Dan was now talking about how this technology seeks out and communicates information about us - and how this information is potentially gathered and used by the manufacturers.
Every time you touch the screen on your Ipod, Ipad or Iphone, it has the potential to gather information about what you are doing - it can let manufacturers know if you are using or looking at their product or application, it can link that information with other things you may have looked at, thereby creating a 'profile' about you - what you look at, how often you look, what you buy and what you spend, what sites you visit. GPS chips can keep track of where you go, and how often. The Ipad 2 has a camera - its possible that this could be used to photograph us, as we use the technology. Software is being developed that can, by scanning your face via this camera, determine everything from your sex and age, to you ethnicity. So much information that we are providing, just by using the technology that most of us take for granted - by using websites or applications, we have given permission for this - but its usually hidden in the small print, and few are probably aware of it.
The technology is there, in the kindle for example, to gather even more information - from how far you hold the kindle from your face, to what light you prefer to read in, to do you read more expensive books faster or slower than cheaper books, to how often you re-read a book - So the book that you are reading, is at the same time, most definitely 'reading you' . And listening, I began to realise how much information we give away about ourselves, when we are using technology like this - and I was extremely uncomfortable with it.
This raises the question 'What is this information used for?' . Is it to provide a better service? Or is it to share/sell/use the information gathered to make more money from you?
"stores your music, photos, documents, and more and wirelessly pushes them to all your devices. Automatic, effortless, and seamless — it just works.
This means also though, that all the information gathered about you is shared by ALL the I products - which means that they can target potential customers, and develop the products they offer, with greater efficiency.
Is this a bad thing, if it results in the development of what potential customers want?
Dan read us the folowing poem
"All watched over by Machines of loving Grace
Richard Brautigan
I like to think (and the sooner the better!) of a cybernetic meadow where mammels and computers live together in mutually programming harmony like pure water touching clear sky. I like to think (right now, please!) of a cybernetic forest filled with pines and electronics where deer stroll peacefully past computers as if they were flowers with spinning blossoms. I like to think (it has to be!) of a cybernetic ecology where we are free of our labors and joined back to nature, returned to our mammal brothers and sisters, and all watched over by machines of loving grace. "
This poem explores the idea that technology and humans can co-exist in a world where the technology is only used to benefit and better the society it exists in. An example - Dan asked how many of us counted people we have never met as 'friends' - people we have come to know via the internet. My hand was up there with everyone else's - I have one particular group of friends, that I have spoken to for several years, that I 'met' in cyber space, on a holiday forum. We now have our own site, and its rare a day goes by that I don't 'talk' to these people. I've spoken to one or two of them, on the phone, but never actually met them in the 'flesh' - yet I honestly count them all as close friends, and I am so glad that I met them. And I believe that my life has been enriched and I have benefited from 'knowing' them.
And thinking it through further - how many times have I found material I have wanted for research for my studies - because at the side of whatever site I am on, at the edge of the 'page' is a list of 'related sites that might interest me'? Many, many times, in fact. I've never before stopped to actually think about what information about me has been gathered, in order that this 'list' of potentially interesting sites can be offered to me.
Like literally millions of people all over the globe, I am a Facebook user - I use it to keep in touch with family who live far away, I have used it to communicate with workmates and fellow students, to follow sites that interest me, to play games, to share photographs - when I am ready to publish this blog, even, I will share it via Facebook - and before this lecture, I would have said that on the whole, used correctly, Facebook is a fantastic innovation. After all, I am savvy enough to set the privacy settings so that I choose who can see information about me, aren't I? And I'm aware of problems like cyber bullying, and am careful enough that I can avoid either becoming involved with, or the victim of, potential pitfalls like that. I'm fussy about what applications I use on it, and know how to block those that could become annoying. So where's the harm? Stop and think - how many times have you typed a status or comment, and later, regretted it? So you delete it, and that's it gone - but it isn't! Once they are typed, those words are stored there forever - now there has been the occasional time I've hit the keyboard and internet after a few drinkies, and not been wise about what I have said- and a few times when I have typed something in temper, and then wished hadn't - am I comfortable with the fact that although I thought that by hitting 'delete', that sort of thing was gone for good, in fact, its all still out there - somewhere? The answer has to be No.
Dan outlined the wealth of information that Facebook collates on its users, and brought to my attention things I was completely unaware of - it was extremely unsettling. I didn't know that although I may delete posts, they are still kept, somewhere out there in cyberspace - potentially forever! A record is kept of everything I do through the site - the games I play, the links I click on, the people I speak to - and again, thinking of how much I - and just about everyone I know - uses Facebook, just how much information do we reveal about ourselves?
So the flip side to 'Machines of loving Grace' - the flip side to the benefits of the way we interact with all this technology. Throwing the subject open to discussion, so many concerns were raised - and I have to say, the debate continued for quite a while after myself and fellow students had left the lecture hall. And in talking with fellow students, both during the lecture and afterwards, it was clear that many of them had some real reservations about this whole issue.
Firstly, the fact that so many had absolutely no idea that this amount of information was collected about ourselves, or how it was done, caused a lot of disquiet . The general feeling that I certainly had was that if this information is gathered to 'provide better service', why does it appear to be done so covertly? I mean, although we have all 'agreed' to it, its so well hidden in the small print and 'gobble-de-gook' of terminology, that most are completely unaware of what is happening when they use the technology. That's enough to raise feelings of suspicion immediately. And there are no privacy laws, under these circumstances, that are being breached - you have no right, once you do find out, to say 'Stop'.
As one member of the audience pointed out, during the lecture, children of a very young age are now completely confident using this technology - as a parent, I check out what sites my 10 year old uses, and we have had many talks about 'safe' internet use - but I do find it scary that when she is on the pc, or playing on Daddy's IPod, information could - and probably is - being gathered about her too.
A while ago, I was extremely disturbed to find that my older children's finger prints had been taken and stored digitally at their secondary school - apparently, for the then 14 year old, I'd 'agreed' to this in signing a school contract, or similar - though I suspect that was hidden in small print too, as I had no recollection of it. Their fingerprints were the means used for ID, so they could add money to their dinner cards - without it, they wouldn't be able to buy anything from the school canteen. Maybe its a generational thing, but the idea of my children's fingerprints being taken and kept really disturbed me - but my children were very laid back about it - they had the attitude that it was no big deal, after all, unless they broke the law, does it really matter that their prints are being kept? What harm can it do?
I guess I had the same attitude to that, as I do to all the other information being collected and stored - its a gut reaction that its a total breach of MY privacy. And I am just not comfortable with complete 'strangers' knowing so much about me - not because I do anything illegal, or morally wrong, but just because if I want information about anything I do to be 'out there', I want to be fully informed and given the choice in that happening. I guess I regard it as a right that I am entitled to chose what I share about myself, and with whom I share it.
And its what that information can be used for, too. Obviously its used to target potential customers and increased revenue for the companies and organisations that gather it. And those organisations can 'sell' the information on, can't they? An example, that caused me immense annoyance - my DH went on the 'Go Compare' site, just a few months ago. He didn't realise that by going on that site, he had given permission for our details - including phone number - to be passed on to an enormous number of companies, and let us in for several weeks of cold call after cold call - which, as usual, occurred generally as we were sitting down to eat, or to watch TV. It took us a while to figure out why we were getting all these annoying interruptions, but once we did, its led to a resolve NOT to use a price comparison site ever again. For us, the benefits of using the site were wiped out by the absolute annoyance of all those cold calls. We had already opted for being ex-directory and used BT telephone preference screening - so as far as we were concerned, we had made the decision that we didn't want cold calls - simply by using a price comparison site, we had no idea that we had basically cancelled the safeguards we thought we had in place. And how far potentially can this be taken? In the future, if I mention an illness to a friend in a message or email, if I visit a medical web site for information, is it then going to be an inevitable result that I get inundated with emails or cold calls from companies offering services or products connected with that illness? Or what about insurance companies being able to access the fact that I had mentioned/expressed and interest in obtaining info about an illness/condition - would this then affect any quotes/service they are prepared to offer me? Or potential employers accessing this info? What if I'd merely looked at the info on behalf of a friend? I guess its possible for information gathered to be incorrectly interpreted in this instance, and the incorrect interpretation could lead to a detrimental impact on decisions made about me by outside companies that had obtained this information. Its extreme, but I suspect its possible . And, again, even without this potential for mis-interpretation, its the basic fact that it feels like a huge invasion of privacy, that also troubles me.
But what else can it be used for? As the technology grows, and the amount of information gathered increases, does the potential for this information to be accessed for illegal reasons also increase? Could it make crimes like identity theft easier? Easier to work out who is more vulnerable to certain scams? Obviously, as a parent, there is a for me, an inbuilt gut reaction to anything that could pose a risk to my children - so concerns about information about them being accessed by paedophiles for example, spring immediately to mind. And just as I didn't know the extent of the information being gathered - or even in a lot of the instances cited - what sort of information is gathered, I don't know what safeguards there are, or how effective they may be.
There has always been the potential for information gathered and stored even openly to be misused. The body scanners at several major airports caused concerns to be raised in the press at the time of their introduction. These scanners take a photograph/x ray, that basically removes the persons clothes, giving a pretty graphic picture of how someone looks naked - and of course, they are digitally captured on a computer. Supposedly deleted once the person being scanned has passed through and raised no alarms, its argued that they are a necessary evil in the fight against terrorism at airports. Only, already the press have reported that staff have 'saved' some of these images, and shared them via the internet - as a 'mature' woman, who has had 3 kids, and who would defy even Gok Wan to make her look good naked, the thought of that appals me ! Its an example of how, once something is 'recorded' by any device that is capable of accessing the vast information highway that is the internet, there is a potential that it can be used immorally - despite safeguards and assurances.
I think that for the most part, today's societies are so dependent on the technology that we now take for granted, that the option just to NOT use it at all is completely infeasible. A vast number of companies now only accept online job applications; cheque books and bank statements are being phased out, leaving on line banking as the only choice; I've come across many organisations who no longer provide phone numbers, just e mail addresses; There are some companies who only operate on line stores; Most of my own research, and that carried out by my children for school, is done online; Part of my course requirement is that I keep a written record of all I do - and its preferred that I do this digitally, in the form of a blog; all the images I've used to illustrate this particular blog have been obtained via google images; Even applications for student finance, and enrolment is done online - and it makes sense that people will want to use the latest technology to access the internet and all that it offers. But do we have to accept that in using this technology, the price we have to pay is that so much information is shared and stored, whether we like it or not?
Dan talked about an 'opt in' system, and personally, I would be far happier if that were the case - I can't and don't feel happy that simply using/purchasing technology means you automatically give consent to all this information being collected, and am even more perturbed by the fact that the majority of us were totally unaware that this was even happening. If we are to really live in a world where we are 'watched over by machines of loving grace', then surely there has to be choice - because without choice, it can't be a world of 'mutual harmony and benefits' - it becomes a Big Brother scenario - at its very worst.
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