Social Media Surveillance

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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.

We live in a world now where we have never been more connected while being more alone. Instead of spending hours on the phone or with our close friends and family, it is now much more convenient to simply tweet, Instagram, or post our feelings on Facebook. Orenstein reveals while she is spending time with her daughter, “ a part of my consciousness had split off and was observing the scene from the outside: this was, I realized excitedly, the perfect opportunity for a tweet” (Orenstein, 347). Orenstein made the conscious, yet somehow detached, decision to post her personal life on social media, instead of fully indulging in the moment. People have allowed social media to overtake both their social lives and

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.

The written word,now a weapon, is now digitized and feed through media. “A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon.” (Bradbury 58). Not only have books become a media revolution so has social interaction. Social media allows for connections formerly unheard. “The problem, they say, is that we spend so much time maintaining superficial connections online that we aren’t dedicating enough time or effort to cultivating deeper real-life relationships.”(WSJ). This avenue of socialization allows for discretion of the true life and person of the poster. “And even worse, the human condition is beginning to devolve. We have become addicted to the vanity of social media unable to expose our lives to the world.”(Green). This media based socialization can overtake the lives of many. “When you add it all up, the average American spends more than 10 hours a day plugged into some form of media.”(Synder). Making the human race even more technology

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

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 of us use social media to communicate with our family, friends and our loved once. Since almost all of my friends live 8000 mile away, I use Facebook, Instagram, and viber to keep in touch with them. Bur recently I started noticing it has become more than a means of communication. I start posting a picture and obsesses about how many likes I get, checking other peoples Facebook just to see if they have more friends than me, believing every post without questioning if it’s a fact and funny enough I start sending friend request for people I don’t even know. Christine Rosen, a senior editor of the New Atlantis and resident fellow at the Ethics and Public policy Center in Wessington, D.C. on “In the Beginning Was the World”, she wrote how technology is affecting the society’s critical reading ability. Peggy Orenstein, an author and a contributing writer for the New York Times, on “I Tweet, Therefore I Am” she talks about how social media is distracting as from fully live in the moment. Even though the development of technology have increased the quality of life, it also brought undeniable challenges to our society. The constant use of social media and internet has increase society attention-seeking, Distracted, and decries critical reading. The use of social media has increased dramatically throughout the years.

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