{"id":628,"date":"2015-03-16T23:45:37","date_gmt":"2015-03-17T03:45:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/?p=628"},"modified":"2015-03-16T23:50:46","modified_gmt":"2015-03-17T03:50:46","slug":"628","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/2015\/03\/16\/628\/","title":{"rendered":"Taking Control of Big Brother’s Eye"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Consumers control the market and ultimately have the power to limit the sight of “Big Brother’s eye”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I found Peterson\u2019s title<\/a> and reference to George Orwell\u2019s 1984 <\/em>both comical and clich\u00e9d. The reference to \u201cBig Brother\u201d is so commonly used when referring to big data because it is easily assumed that any corporation or government organization with hands on the data would automatically and instantly abuse the privilege and spy on the population. It is rarely realized that such a freedom is in fact a privilege and not a right. If us, as consumers, were so interested in privacy, we wouldn\u2019t demand such tools.<\/p>\n

Why is it that our Jawbone, Fitbit, Misfit, or whatever other device we use to track exercise and sleep HAS to link up with our iPhone? Obviously, the answer is shear convenience. How appealing would it be to download all of your daily data to a laptop or some other form of offline tracker? That would seem monotonous and excessive. Developers have found a way to incorporate something useful, a fitness and sleep tracker, and pair that with the thing that Americans interact with more than anything else on a daily basis, a smartphone.<\/p>\n

All inventions come to improve or initiate efficiency in a particular activity. That is simply the nature of technology. Pederson\u2019s idea of augmented memory<\/a> also sounds extremely convenient (and dangerous, but that\u2019s another conversation). Having the ability to remember everything I ever read, studied, or discussed would come with so many advantages. However, the fact that that information could be digitized and distribute would also frighten me. Again, such an invention would still only be optional in society, which is the beauty of a market economy. Unlike in Orwell\u2019s dystopian society, we can control Big Brother\u2019s market if we really desire. Unfortunately for those fearful of Big Brother\u2019s eye, millions of fitness tracking users would agree that convenience is extremely important, thus fueling the spread of these big data mechanisms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I found Peterson\u2019s title and reference to George Orwell\u2019s 1984 both comical and clich\u00e9d. The reference to \u201cBig Brother\u201d is so commonly used when referring to big data because it is easily assumed that any corporation or government organization with hands on the data would automatically and instantly abuse the privilege and spy on the … Continue reading Taking Control of Big Brother’s Eye<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-group-2","category-readers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":636,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628\/revisions\/636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.digitaldavidson.net\/dig210\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}