Late last week, I received a text message from Verizon Wireless alerting me to the fact that I was on my way to going over my monthly minutes. In truth, I paid little attention to it - last time I got such a text, I was about 150 minutes below my limit with only a couple of days to go, so I just didn't worry.
WRONG! (A word of warning, do not ignore those texts.)
Yesterday morning, I donned my cool yellah Jawbone bluetooth gizmo, and started making calls on my way to work. First call in, I get rerouted to Verizon Wireless. I was all, whoa! WTF! My first thought, since I'm a law abiding citizen, was that I mentioned C4 in my conversations a little too much. Dang it, I knew this would happen. The reason I've been mentioning C4 is that I filed a case in the Central Justice courthouse and it was assigned to Dept C-4, but those machine things that listen to key words don't know the difference between C-4 the courtroom and C4 the explosive. Incidentally, if Homeland Security got sucked into this post, sorry, dudes.
Natch, it had nothing to do with any key words in my conversations - Verizon saw fit to stop me from making any further calls because I had already incurred EIGHTY-SIX DOLLARS IN OVERAGES. Holy shit! If they hadn't stopped me my cell phone bill would have run me $300. Ouch. Verizon, bless their hearts, decided not to make me pay said $86, which was entirely within their contractual rights to do, but instead helped me find a new plan that would fit my minutes usage better. Instead of an extra $100+ this month, I'll be paying $10 less than I have been.
Of course, this got me thinking about privacy and the modern digital world. Don't get excited, I didn't have any particularly insightful or original thoughts, although it did not escape my notice that I was somewhat grateful for Big Brother Verizon's intervention. However, I must admit I was conflicted about having my call rerouted. On the one hand, I'm grateful that Verizon saved me from myself. On the other, it struck me that even though I am fully aware that there is very little privacy in this here digital age (especially since I blog and Tweet and Facebook and shop online and can't remember the last time I used my land line at home), I still have an expectation of privacy. My expectation of privacy is that what I write online is not private, but that my phone conversations and text messages are private, and they are intended to be so, and I don't think about it much beyond that.
The question I ask myself is this: is Big Brother already here, with our consent and at our invitation? Or is this simply the modern version of community? Is it an invasion of privacy, or at least a little creepy, that Verizon would hijack my call to have a conversation with me about not wasting my money, or is Verizon part of my community now, a community that is exponentially larger than it was 10 years ago, and that includes all kinds of people who I have never met and who I will never meet, but who contribute to my life in different ways? And does the fact that Verizon is ultimately in it for the money make any difference to the answer to the question? After all, everyone in my life has their own agenda that they pursue, as do I, and our agendas may or may not align, but that does not mean that we are not part of a community and that we do not contribute something to each other.
This query extends to the new privacy settings on Facebook. I read up on the changes, and they do not appear particularly threatening to me. (Incidentally, here is a concise and clear article about what the changes consist of, and how to adjust your settings, courtesy of Nicholas de Wolff and Fast Company.) I have adjusted my privacy settings, and am not particularly concerned about my FB friends knowing what pages I like on the internet, or for that matter about The Internet knowing what pages I like. My surfing and online shopping preferences are no secret to anyone. Besides, Facebook is free. There are trade-offs.
Which brings me to another point: are they really trade-offs? Facebook is a social networking site, emphah-sis on social. Its entire premise, its raison d'etre if you will, is for its members to be all up in each other's business. I mean, that's the point, right? And for folks who do not want to be public, they can simply avoid updates or really much activity at all and then they can choose to contact their friends offline or by email or whatever. The point is, is it fair or even reasonable to be on a huge social networking site, be active on it daily, and then expect to have privacy?
I do see that there is a distinction between privacy as to your friends, and privacy as to commercial establishments that want your business. However, I also think that we are smart enough to be able to treat our friends and businesses differently.
So I guess my point is this: that whether I feel that my privacy is invaded or that my community has expanded to fit modern life is largely a matter of perception. I for one lean towards believing that my community has expanded. But then, I don't have much of a sense of privacy, so maybe I'm not the best person to ask.
