Privacy?

In an episode of Parks and Recreation, a TV show revolving around the lives of the employees of the Parks and Recreation department of the fictional town of Pawnee, Indiana, the head of the department, Ron, is the definition of a Luddite. He disapproves highly of technology and does not trust it at all; at one point, noticing how the website he was on was making personalized advertisements for him, he proceeded to throw away his entire computer to ensure that his privacy was still intact. In another extreme measure, Ron tries to get himself “off the grid” with the help of two of his employees who happen to be very much “on the grid”. On his quest for ultimate privacy, Ron got rid of all public pictures of him, stopped using his cell phone, and bought a camper for himself so he would not have a permanent address anymore for other people to know.

Now, this is a ridiculous and obviously fictional solution to the problem of trying to find some semblance of privacy while using the Internet and any form of social media. But it has to make you wonder what it would take to be completely “off the grid” like Ron tries to do in Parks and Rec. It seems that for data mining purposes, everything you use on the Internet is actually secretly spying on you in order to develop better advertisements and better marketing strategies. Recently, it has been revealed that the government is spying on you almost more than anyone in order to combat possible terroristic threats. While this is a noble cause, people obviously have to wonder how far is too far in terms of breaking privacy rules?

With the outcry and overall disapproval with the NSA spying on us citizens, it seems that the line is approaching at a faster pace than ever before. As our society and culture continue to change to a more technological world, hopefully a happy medium between the government and its citizens will be achieved.