Well Informed: Security and Privacy

It has been really interesting to see the issue of privacy and security arise in the past year. Although I can completely see where the concern is coming from, I've been surprised to see so many people get upset about this whole thing when they haven't even done their own research. Most of these people that I hear every day freaking out about their information being shared, are people that don't even read over the full agreements and policies that they agree to by signing when they buy a new phone, set up a new computer software, sign up for internet service, or sign a cell phone contract.
The sad thing is, that in all of our loss of privacy, we are doing a lot of this to ourselves. We are constantly giving up our privacy and information just to receive instant gratification. We want to use our cell phone, we want to connect with our friends, we want to connect to the internet, and we are not going to take the time to consider how this choice might affect us in 2 years or even in the next 5 minutes. We are not going to take the time to read through every single term and condition. That's completely understandable, but that is still our choice. Nothing forces us to use cell phones, internet, or technology at all. Although it would be ridiculously inconvenient, we could live a life with no technology. That sounds absolutely ridiculous, but we could do that. Nobody is forcing us to sign these contracts or agree to the terms and conditions on the 50 apps we download on our phones. So the amount of people that are so surprised that companies are tracking their information and text messages kind of surprises me. I'm sitting there like, "Really? What did you think clicking 'yes, agree to allow Snapchat access to the microphone,' meant? What do you think was in all those pages of terms and conditions that you agreed to?"
I'm not saying that I agree with the lack of privacy that is offered by the internet, search engines, applications, our phones and so much more. But, I understand contracts. And unfortunately, every contract I sign is a risk if I haven't read through it thoroughly. And I get that. I take risks every day that I probably shouldn't. But I know that if I signed the contract, or I clicked yes, that I have read and agree to everything, then that really can't be argued. Anything beyond that, that I didn't agree to, no, it is not right. But I think when we are all ready to attack these companies that use our information, we should just first look into what we've agreed to. That's all I am saying. From there, we can argue and fight against companies all we want for the things they are doing that we did not agree to.

Political Debate

I had the opportunity to watch the political debate last week and found it to be a lot different than I was expecting. I knew a little bit about each candidate going into this and was somewhat familiar with their characters, but I was kind of surprised at both of them in this debate. For one, I was a bit surprised at how like-able Hilary seemed to be.
I'm not in favor of Hilary and I guess if it really came down to it, I would choose Trump over her, but I really found some of her arguments and statements to be reasonable. She really did sound good I thought, and I guess I was a bit surprised by that. To be honest, I don't know a whole lot about the issues that they debated, and so if I didn't even know who Trump and Hilary were in walking into this, I probably could have been swayed either way. But the interesting thing to me was that it was so difficult to think that Trump was really doing a good job in this debate at all. Just the way that he presented his ideas and the claims that he made, he didn't really do in his favor.
Due to the above reasons, it was really interesting to see social media explode during and after this debate. It was kind of difficult to find many people that even favored one of these candidates. Someone would post something against Trump, and right after that they would post something bashing Hilary. The funny thing was, a lot of the posts and pictures that I saw in social media weren't even in regard to the topics and issues being discussed. A lot of it was in regard to their appearances, the way they talk, and their backgrounds.
Unfortunately, I don't feel like many of our culture are really accurately informed about the concerns and issues at hand, but the thing is that it is SO hard to find accurate information! Everything is skewed in some way or another. And so because of that, a lot of people aren't even talking about the real issues, just talking about what the radio had to say this morning, or what Trump's hairpiece looks like on the front of a magazine. Media is full of skewed information and opinions that are constantly misinterpreted as facts.  I feel like this is one of the contributing factors to this whole election being such a mess.