Does technology control you? Or do you control it?

The answer for me is definitely the former one. Because of its transparency, technology exerts a lot of control on me.

The following are the media that I use daily:

Mobile phone

Facebook

Taobao (It’s an online shopping website)

If I have to rank the level of control they have over me, I would probably say Taobao comes first, then Facebook and finally mobile phone. Every day when I get home from school, the first thing I will do is to visit and check Taobao because I don’t want to miss any updates about the shops or special and beautiful items. Perhaps you would think that I have been too addicted to it, but actually, I always feel that there is an invisible hand pushing me to do that without any notice. But who controls this invisible hand? They are the media and technology.

I am just the same as many people who log in their Facebook automatically and check it constantly every day no matter they are free or busy. We do it routinely just like we need to eat and sleep daily.  I read an article that is about Arianna Huffington, the president and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, saying that she started her Huffington Post because she recognized the “obsessive compulsive nature of the web”. (Quoted from jeffbullas.com) It is same as the media.
 
The media make us forget its existence between us and the reality. It is just like Rodney said, they have become transparent! There are many things that we do but we don’t know why we do them. For example, if we check Facebook and visit Taobao continually, we don’t know why but we think it is natural. Why it is natural? It is because we lack consciousness about the existence of the media when we are doing it. Let me take myself as an example. When I keep on visiting Taobao, I have forgotten that it is just a kind of meditational means which makes me feel like I am actually looking around and shopping in different boutiques, talking to the shop assistants “face to face”.

The media are so powerful. They really wash our brain and make us believe what they said and follow what they encourage us to do. So it is true that the more we use them, the more transparent they will become and the more control they will have over us. 

However, some kinds of technology control are just confined to some hand-held devices such as mobile phones or iPad. People spend a lot of time on texting, playing games or using the Apps etc like they are living in an isolated island. In fact, they do that just out of boredom. It is not like the people visiting the websites because they need to find some information for their reseach project. I think the former group of people can avoid being controlled a bit if they analyze it. 

“Sorry, we don’t allow fake names.”- Facebook

About a week ago, I was so shocked when I tried to login my Facebook account and I got rejected. The reason was, MY ACCOUNT WAS DISABLED! Then, I tried the old account which I had deactivated for many weeks and would no longer use, however, it also said that my account was disabled. At that moment, I really couldn’t make my head and I felt like somebody slamming the door in my face. Thus, I visited their FAQ page and tried to dig out what had happened. Guess what? It said I used fake names. I think they don’t allow me to use “HaHa Claire” but “Claire Lam”, which is my proper English name, as my user name when I set up my account. 

Here is the email Facebook sent me and you can see they always emphasize they don't allow fake names.

Anyway, I tell you my story because I want to point out that many people construct fake social identities in the social network websites like Facebook, MySpace and Match.com etc to get a chance to date their “beautiful” internet friends nowadays. People use the social networking websites as a platform or perhaps a tool for advertising and promoting the “beautiful” side of themselves while hiding their true face simultaneously. They want to be ambitious, decent and hard-working in front of their co-workers, boss and family but they also want to act cool, handsome, playful and outgoing to their online friends. To be complete in both respects, some of them create two or above accounts for different purposes. Of course, the accounts for dating purpose are their fake identities since some people like to boast of their social status and appearance etc to impress their friends. I have a friend who is really a good example of this. He told me he has 10 Facebook accounts at least. Some of them are used for spying on his girlfriend, some of them are used for keeping contact with his old schoolmates as well as family. The rest are for flirting and meeting online girls. 

Social networking sites like Facebook and others always encourage people to provide their true identities. Unfortunately it happened that many people are usually against their “ideal” rule. It seems very ironic to see that many people just ignore the rule and continue making fake identities while Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg insists, “You ( every Facebook user) have ONLY ONE identity. Having two identities for yourself is an example of a lack of integrity.” (extracted from an article on Michael Timmer.org)

To dissect my case, the reason I used “HaHa Claire” instead of “Claire Lam” because I don’t want to reveal too much personal information about myself on the internet. I was worried that my information would be stolen and used for the commercial purposes or even illegal activities. (LOL) I know I am a bit exaggerated but it’s true that many other people have the same doubt as me! Nothing is impossible! And I didn’t use my old account because it had been hacked before.

That is why I always think that some social networking sites are not 100% safe and the people are not 100% real. It is just like online shopping. The description and picture of the products displayed in the online auction sites, let’s say Yahoo Auction, may not be 100% same as the real products. It is all about online “packaging”. Fake packaging. 

There is a question I want to ask Facebook! That is, if Facebook doesn't allow people to create fake accounts or unreal identities, why they just let people set up an account so easily? I mean, why the procedure of signing up is so simple and easy? Don't they think it is a drawback or perhaps the origin of the problem? :P