湖边絮语（二）：A Time of Lost Privacy: Between Traditionalism and Moder

(Shanjing)

Technology has made our life so much more efficient, and easier. The use of emails, for example, enables us to make friends and talk with people we’ve never met from different countries and continents; the space and time no longer separate people from one to another. However, technology has also brought about impersonality, lost privacy, and all kinds of other barriers in human social interaction.

Everyday we seem to be flooded with all kinds of messages, and receive lots of emails, wanted or unwanted, some from people we know, some from strange/never heard of addresses. Thanks to computer’s self protection function against virus and other potential problems , some emails we received were selected into Spams and trashed, others enter our inbox.

To try to maintain a relatively clean and peaceful living environment in a time of impersonality, lost privacy, and easily becoming victims of technology crimes, some of us chose to stay away from popular communication tools, such as Fanbox, Facebook, and cell phone. The down side is that sometimes when we do receive messages appear interesting, from a long lost friend, an old classmate, or just strangers, we could not open them. For example, if you want to open a video that stimulates your curiosity, but when you try to open it, you’re blocked because it requests your private info, such as your cell phone number and id. If you don’t have a cell phone number then there’s no way to enter.

We seem to be caught between traditionalism and modernity. Is it possible for people to protect their traditional way of life?  Is it inevitable that all of us eventually will be pushed to be swallowed by the over-controlling modern technology? How long can we continue to resist the invasion of technology into people's personal life as social beings?

2011 8 26