Privacy

        The new media provides us with a lot of conveniences in our daily lives. The smartphone is powerful to help us do a lot of things, such as taking photo, recording video, playing game, reading book and so on. We can go online shopping and pay by our credit card easily instead of spending time on going to the real store. GPS application can lead us to the destination. Social media can help us build a connection with people and the world. But, when we get and enjoy convenience, we must lose something. Apparently, we trade our privacy to convenience. What is privacy? It’s our right to be alone. We have the right to control our identification information from unauthorized commercial use. However, we are forced to give up the right in some time. When we purchase online, if we don’t want to enter our payment information every time, we have to agree with the browser to store it. Then we can just click a button twice to get the information typed. But, our information is stored in the browser company, and they can analyze the data and apply it to other business. Some companies will even sell the information to another company. Most people have multiple social media accounts. If they want to connect their Instagram and Facebook account, they need to agree to share information across the platform. I believe everyone wants to protect their privacy, but they have to give it up for some reasons. That’s a tradeoff. If people want to protect their privacy completely, they will need to abandon new media entirely. Is it possible? We are living in 2019, not in 1902. To balance this tradeoff, the government needs to set up a law to regulate how the company can manipulate user privacy. They are allowed to use it but with some specific regulations.