In a world where diverse lifestyles consume our day-to-day lives, we still seem to believe in everyone having to reach a goal, which modern day society sets for us, rather than individuals themselves.
Despite this, one question should always be considered…
Have we, as a whole society, set unrealistic goals?
Due to the internet becoming extremely popular in the past decade – people have developed an ‘urge’ to want everything – such as ever increasing bank accounts, expensive cars and valuable belongings has led to personal details regularly and explicitly being broadcasted across global networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Goals we set for ourselves are usually inspired by our role models on these networks. Famous Hollywood
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In our older years, we dream of being world-class athletes, chefs, soldiers and musicians. Yet now, in our adolescences – we have to search again for ‘stable’ and ‘realistic’ dream.
Although this is proposed to thousands of young adults all over the world on a daily basis – there are only few answers to these requests…
Who actually knows?
Who, with an education still to fulfil, knows where the future will take them?
Who – with our whole existence still ahead of us – knows the single thing they want to do for the rest of their lives?
We focus on having the desired body image, the perfect relationship and the best social status. The goals we set in our lives maybe influenced by and copied off our role models instead created by ourselves. As a society – this is the time to construct our own dreams (which commonly are labelled as ‘unrealistic’). Furthermore, we need to convey the motivating force of the young minds to take hold of what we want most – without the pressures of following societies’ guidelines. As Diana Scharf Hunt once said, “Goals are dreams with deadlines”. I believe this is an important message as we only have one life and we should try to accomplish and experience as much as
Life, such a broad yet concise topic. A multitude of different people and cultures offer different opinions on what gives life value and how to obtain satisfaction in our lives. For example, the typical “American Dream” is defined as attaining wealth and success through hard work, while many Spanish cultures consider closeness within a family a valuable trait in life. Whether it is family, success, love, or faith, every citizen in each different culture finds what brings him or her joy and does whatever it takes to reach this satisfaction. There are three specific aspects of my life which make life worth living; these include my faith, my family, and the talents I have been blessed with.
“The standards of what we want to keep private and what we make public are constantly evolving. Over the course of Western history, we’ve developed a desire for more privacy, quite possibly as a status symbol…”(Singer) Technological change leads to new abuses, creating new challenges to security, but society adapts to those challenges. To meet the innate need for privacy, we learn what to reveal and where, and how to keep secret what we don't want to disclose. “Whether Facebook and similar sites are reflecting a change in social norms about privacy or are actually driving that change, that half a billion people are now on Facebook suggests that people believe the benefits of connecting with others, sharing information, networking, self-promoting, flirting, and bragging outweigh breaches of privacy that accompany such behaviours,”(Singer) This is obvious by the continuous and unceasing use of social media platforms, but what needs to be considered is that this information is being provided willingly. “More difficult questions arise when the loss of privacy is not in any sense a choice.”(Singer) When the choice to be anonymous it taken away through social media, the person loses the ability to keep their personal information
Privacy is becoming rare as our society continues to become more industrialized and move towards a society hyper-focused on technology. Nicholas Carr explains this obsession with technology in his essay “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty.” He identifies three dangers that are present in today’s internet society that are: personal data can fall into the wrong hands easily, personal information may be used to influence our behavior, and personal privacy is eroding and may lead us as a society to devalue the concept of privacy. These dangers are not only possible but they are seen in our world today.
As a child, dreams of becoming something that often times are believed to be slightly out of reach, such as a pro athlete, or a rock star, or an actor are common. Adults tend to veer juveniles away from aspirations of pursuing these careers because the chance of success in one of those careers is quite
People need to think intelligently and set goals that are specific to their needs, making it possible to achieve their goals by making sure they are measurable and realistic and making it possible to build a support system around them; furthermore, they also need to set a deadline with time frames that can be met. Chanika Charles stated that “young people are at risk of being gobbled up by despair, overcome by conditions beyond their control” (A17). To avoid this, people need to start motivating themselves and getting excited about what they want to achieve, making sure their goals are relevant to their needs and being more perseverance when situations become difficult. When setting up their goals, they must ask that magic question: is this relevant to my lifestyle, furthermore, what will I do to achieve it?
The personal connection Americans have with their phones, tablets, and computers; and the rising popularity of online shopping and social websites due to the massive influence the social media has on Americans, it is clear why this generation is called the Information Age, also known as Digital Age. With the Internet being a huge part of our lives, more and more personal data is being made available, because of our ever-increasing dependence and use of the Internet on our phones, tablets, and computers. Some corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook; governments, and other third parties have been tracking our internet use and acquiring data in order to provide personalized services and advertisements for consumers. Many American such as Nicholas Carr who wrote the article “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty, With Real Dangers,” Anil Dagar who wrote the article “Internet, Economy and Privacy,” and Grace Nasri who wrote the article “Why Consumers are Increasingly Willing to Trade Data for Personalization,” believe that the continuing loss of personal privacy may lead us as a society to devalue the concept of privacy and see privacy as outdated and unimportant. Privacy is dead and corporations, governments, and third parties murdered it for their personal gain not for the interest of the public as they claim. There are more disadvantages than advantages on letting corporations, governments, and third parties track and acquire data to personalized services and advertisements for us.
If a random person came over to you on the street, would you give him your personal information? Would you allow him to follow and record your activities? Most certainly not. Although this answer may be obvious in the physical world, the general populations’ behavior on the Internet is strikingly different. Websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google retain vast amounts of personal information of their users. Although this practice benefits the user as well, unrestricted profiling can be quite unnerving. Since regulation from the government may impede Internet use, and unless the threat to internet users privacy are shown to exceed the benefits, the government will not regulate the internet, rather we should educate the public how to be more responsible themselves.
“Human beings are not meant to lose their anonymity and privacy,” Sarah Chalke. When using the web, web users’ information tend to be easily accessible to government officials or hackers. In Nicholas Carr’s “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty,” Jim Harpers’ “Web Users Get As Much As They Give,” and Lori Andrews “Facebook is Using You” the topic of internet tracking stirred up many mixed views; however, some form of compromise can be reached on this issue, laws that enforces companies to inform the public on what personal information is being taken, creating advisements on social media about how web users can be more cautious to what kind of information they give out online, enabling your privacy settings and programs, eliminating weblining,
Americans pride themselves on living private lives. They appreciate the fact that they live without being under the watchful eye of someone. However, increased electronic technology has made it harder to live privately. There are privacy issues regarding Internet Service Providers (ISP), electronic correspondences, and telephone calls. More directly with the creation and increased popularity of the Internet, people who use the World Wide Web are undoubtedly concerned with their private information being leaked. The technology allows people to track your Internet activities, steal your credit card information and “hack” into your e-mail accounts. With this increase in technology comes an increase in the level of concern.
If a stranger would approach someone on the street, would one casually offer personal information to him? Would one allow him to follow and record one’s activities? Although it may be obvious in the concrete world that one would not allow it, the behavior of the general population on the Internet is strikingly different. While surfing websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google, many people provide personal details to enhance their online profile? These websites retain vast amounts of personal information from their users.
The Internet offers many benefits but it also creates many threats that undermines our personal privacy. Concerns about loss of privacy are not new. But the computer's ability to gather and sort vast amounts of data and the Internet's ability to distribute it globally magnify those concerns [1]. Privacy concerns on the Internet are centered on improper acquisition, improper use of personal information such as intrusions, manipulation, discrimination, identity theft, and stalking of personal information. Today the Internet stretches our geographic boundaries and force us to deal with global ethic based on moral principles held to be valid across the cultures. Due to the nature of the Internet, our personal information may be transmitted over the internet and that the transfer of personal information may be made to any country in the world, regardless of the extent of any data protection laws and regulations in any of those countries.
Millions of people resent the government for being somewhat of a Big Brother, making accusations of spyware programs and hacking, supposedly regulating our every move, yet freely share exceedingly personal information publicly. It has become common practice to post about your family members, location, phone number, email address, workplace, political affiliations and so much more, reaching far beyond the simple question “what are you doing now?”. Although many sites like Twitter and Instagram have a delete button, your postings are in actuality never erased permanently, but instead are gone from your so-called timeline. Daum notes in her essay that, “in a world without boundaries… privacy as a cultural or even personal value has been going out of style for quite some time now” (233). It is almost hypocritical in a way how our society pretends to value secrecy and discretion, yet people of all walks of life exhibit very little self restraint when it comes to filtering the kinds of information they post about
Perhaps the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, said it best when he claimed that privacy is no longer a “social norm.” Virtually everyone has a smart phone and everyone has social media. We continue to disclose private information willingly and the private information we’re not disclosing willingly is being extracted from our accounts anyway. Technology certainly makes these things possible. However, there is an urgent need to make laws and regulations to protect against the stuff we’re not personally disclosing. It’s unsettling to think we are living in 1984 in the 21st century.
In this new era of the Internet, most people use the Internet to acquire information of one kind or other. But what these people are not aware of is that the Internet is collecting information about them. Every time we get onto the Internet there might be a compromise of privacy of our personal information. The information flows both ways. With every clock of the mouse on a hyperlink, or an addition to the mailing list, someone out there might be gathering information about us. This raises the seriousness of privacy of our information on the Internet.
Internet technology is accelerating the rate of globalization. Email, in particular, is now one of the fastest ways for us to communicate with each other, and to do business, making our world much smaller and more immediate. This same technology that can enhance our lives and accelerates the pace of global change can also destroy our personal privacy at the same rate.