June 25th, 2007
Reality television leads to "unreality" communications
I’m not a fan of today’s reality television. I don’t really want to know that Sharon Osbourne likes to flash her son’s friends. However, there is a certain amount of voyeurism in all of us, which today’s reality television exploits and numbs us to the reality of unreality.
We now have the e-communicative tools to expose much of our private lives to anyone with access to the Internet, including Grandma Frieda. In fact, it’s common practice for future employers and college admission officers to check YouTube and MySpace for your possible transgressions - à la Paris Hilton.
Discussing privacy and Twitter, eWeek.com writer, Jim Rapoza, says, “Obviously there are different levels of privacy, and the point at which it becomes an issue is different for everyone,” to which a reader commented:
But it still comes down to a matter of choice and control, and privacy advocates would be well to emphasize these aspects and insist that laws, regulations, and systems be constructed to allow the power to decide to stay in the hands of the individual.
Let’s say that I choose to post a photo of myself as a Las Vegas showgirl on the Internet. That’s my constitutional right. A month from now, I say to myself “What was I thinking!” Has the boldness of today’s reality television numbed our sensibilities in how we communicate on the Internet? Has the virtual reality of Internet communications (video, audio, Twitter, blogs and so on) dumbed down our thinking to the potential ”unreality” exposed on the Internet for perpetuity?
