I’ve never let anything too open be written about me on the internet. I’ve googled myself and only a few things come up such as soccer scores from high school, or clubs from high school, or dean’s list in college. I’ve worked hard to be sure that my Facebook and other social networking sites have only the information I am okay with allowing the public to see. I would never post anything too personal, but pictures are always deceiving because although there aren’t any incriminating pictures of me; one could still find out a lot about my life through my friends and family.

I think that the F.T.C should definitely create a “do not track” list because that seems the most logical. It makes me really sad to know that people don’t understand that the whole world can see anything you do on the internet if you don’t have the necessary privacy settings. There is a show at home in America called “To Catch a Predator” and this is the epitome of someone not understanding that the internet is a scary place. The show catches people talking to underage children asking to meet them in person for bad things.

The internet can be a scary place, although it has allowed for many, many positive things; it has also lead to many negative. As long as users are aware of the consequences, there are definitely more positives than negatives.

Throughout our presentation we will discuss things like:

Why do people use WebMD? Is it safe to allow citizens to have access to this type of information? Does this site promote hypochondria? Could/Does it lead to self-medication or the purchase of drugs online? Pros and Cons of the site.

Old Dogs learn New Tricks In the Internet we trust (…and doubt) February 15, 2010

 In any relationship there exists an element of trust and an element of doubt — with varying degrees, depending on the level and nature of the relationship. Our relationship with the internet is no exception. Digital immigrants and natives alike value privacy in their lives. The notion of trust is at the core of the privacy issue on the Internet. While we use the internet to connect with other people via email, facebook, instant messaging etc. we are simultaneously connecting ourselves to other institutions and corporations who loiter on the internet, monitor internet traffic and track what advertisements we click. Information that we put on the internet we sometimes presume to be private but unfortunately there is no real “privacy” on the internet — anything that enters the abyss of the online world can potentially be found by anyone. In fact, an entire industry was created, dedicated to cracking internet security codes to steal information about people’s credit cards, social security numbers, email addresses (for spamming purposes) etc. As Palfrey and Gasser explained “the privacy issue is the Achilles’ heel of Google, Facebook, Microsoft, MySpace and other big companies that hold an increasing amount of data about us”. The Internet is one of those things in life for which I hold both a deep-seeded hatred and love. While the internet offers a plethora of information about people, places and things — I find myself hesitating to put the same kind of information out there about myself. We might think the Internet functions as a friend, but that isn’t really the case. If a friend betrays our trust and shares information we told them in confidence, there can be confrontation, reprecussions and reconciliation. With the Internet, if a website shares our personal information with another corporation, instituion or internet hacker — sometimes we don’t even know, and sometimes when we do find out there is no real way to fight back (with the exception of suing, that is…)

mvetovitz // February 15, 2010 at 10:28 pm | Reply I agree with everything you’ve said here. I think it’s really interesting to see status updates regarding realtionships on facebook. That’s one of the reasons why I hardly ever allow anything like that to be on facbeook because I personally feel that information like that is private. If the relationship was to turn bad, it should be a private matter not something to be posted to the world. I think that the few people that do allow this sort of information to leak, may be doing so for attention and it aggrevates me. The internet may be useful and act as our friend, but when it comes to portraying information about myself online, I feel the same as you because I don’t want to be defered from a job or something of that nature becuase of my personal information online. Many jobs today are looking into extra-curricular activities of their future employees and for many this is disturbing because most think that there should be a wall between “work and play.”

         I think it’s almost fascinating to look at children born today and how much they know about computers and internet and all of the new gadgets created. My cousin whom is 7 now, could show me how he goes online to play games with his little brothers on websites as a 4 and 5 year old. He knew exactly how to open in the internet and remembered his password (which was created with his help) and username and then began playing. It makes me, personally, really excited to see this because I remember being a child and learning that type of thing in school, but they don’t even have to teach that in school anymore because the children just learn it growing up, as a part of their daily life.

        My family is very tech-savvy because my father is a computer programmer and because of his age, he was one of the first few to acquire this information. For this sake I think I am very biased on the positives and negatives we discussed in class about natives vs. immigrants. Although I know many baby-boomers that are almost “afraid” of the new technology I think most of them embrace the fact that times ARE changing and they need to try and keep up. I would definitely agree that natives are digital learners, that we don’t use “libraries” rather the internet that we adore social networking and we are definitely more dependent on our technology. But I don’t think that the older generations lack these qualities, I believe that they just don’t rely on them as much as my generation does. I think that because our parents were able to get by fine without say GPS, they are able to problem solve a lot easier and for that fact are maybe not as impatient. I have a very large family, and we do not live near each other, so technology has made it VERY easy to keep in contact with family members from afar. I have found that it is (maybe obviously) easier to teach a younger family member to download and use a program such as Skype, but I don’t think that my older family members find it difficult, I just have to find a different way of explaining the information. I’m really excited to see what happens with technology in the future.

 
I thought this was really cute picture I found on google images. It fits pretty well :]

I am Michelle. I am a student living in København, Denmark for the next few months. I am starting this blog for a class that I am taking right now called Virtual Worlds and the Digital Consumer and I hope that this blog will become a handy tool that will help me to remember all of my wonderful trips and days in Copenhagen. I have been planning to study abroad since I was in High School and took my first trip abroad with my family. I´ve traveled around the US with my family since I was a child so going abroad gave me the ability to open my horizons and see more of the world. Because my college is so large I was able to basically choose any country I wanted travel to and ended up choosing Denmark. Upon arrival, my kollegium was broken into (on the second day) and I was then given the decision to stay in an area that I felt was un-safe or move. So I chose to move and now I have 7 roommates and I love everything about the city. My classes are fun and the city is magnificent. I am now planning trips for weekends and breaks and cannot wait to begin my travels outside of Denmark. I´ve been to the Vikings Museum, the Kronberg Castle, Carslberg Brewery, Ebeltoft, Kolding, Odense and a few other places!