The main difference I discerned between the Facebook data
about myself that I downloaded and the Google information about myself is that the
Facebook profile is mainly things that I have posted. This means that at some
point, I deemed my photos, wall posts, statuses, and messages as worthy of
entering online. This began to worry me when I saw some of the posts I have
made that require knowledge of the situation in order to be understood or need
to be understood as sarcastic or else their implications seem problematic; tone
is not conveyed effectively. I think this shows an understanding of my
generation that things we post are thought of as transitory, passing whims. We
don’t consider them that important over time, even if we consider some of our
online interactions as important while we are having them. Perusing my Facebook
data, however, assaulted me with the reality of my online interaction—it’s all there. All of it is recorded,
the good and the bad. A great deal of it is awkward to read through and recall
because it is so pointless now or I would rather forget it happened. It caused
me to reflect on the purpose of my Facebook status to me. Currently, I think I’ve
posted a status three times in the last eight months, so I don’t use it very
often. However, when I first had Facebook 6 years and 4 months ago (cool, it
tells you when you created it!), I posted a lot of statuses, mostly stupid
ones. I was thinking that my statuses are kind of like looking through a photo
album...except that it isn’t the same. We take photos and actually make them
into an album if interesting things are happening (Snapchat is changing this
though). My statuses in and of themselves are not interesting. The most
disturbing realization of this exercise was seeing my private messages between
friends. I wish many of them could be destroyed. There is so much there that
just doesn’t need to be remembered, especially word for word.
In
contrast, my Google information was a bit different because it is Google’s
assumptions about me based on my searches and site history. I was actually
surprised by how inaccurately Google chose my “interests.” Then I realized that
many of them make sense because of the stage of life I am in—college, where I
have very, very little time to do what I enjoy or try new activities. Thus,
most of my searches are school related (e.g. “Books & Literature, Finance”).
My interests based on websites I have visited are confined solely to “Dictionaries
& Encyclopedias...” Some categories make no sense to me. Not only am I not
interested in them, but I don’t remember any searches that would lead to these
categories (e.g. “Hair care, mobile phones, shooter games, celebrities &
entertainment news, East Asian music”). Thus, Google’s information about me
seemed less personal than Facebook’s. I caused Google to perceive me that way
through my searches and web history, but I didn’t actually input the specific
information about myself.
My main takeaway
from this exercise is that I feel a bit like our digital world is Michael
Foucault’s concept of “panopticism.” We are always monitored. Everything I say
on Facebook, “privately” in messages or publicly in posts, is recorded and
located in some database somewhere I have no access to and can no longer
control. My use of Google affects what the company thinks of me, and it can
sell that information to advertisers. I think that we (all internet users, not
just my generation) need to more carefully consider what we type into our
computers. Maybe for Google searches, it doesn’t matter. Facebook, on the other
hand, can seem a bit intrusive. I wonder if this means we should have more
face-to-face or physical communication...
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