Rewrite of Howard Rheingold (Smart Mobs)

I found the concept of “smart mobs” very interesting. I especially understood that there can be disadvantages to being so technologically advanced. For example, the great lack of privacy. Rheingold shows this through his statement “When you piece together these different technological, economic, and social components, the result is an infrastructure that makes certain kinds of human actions possible that were never possible before”. He is talking about radio chips, and wireless internet and ways that people use technology, all of that makes up this puzzle of a “smart mob”. I really agree that we are doing things now that never in a million years we all thought technology would be capable of. Back to the privacy issue, surveillance is a technology that is increasingly developed to new levels. When we used to know very little about people, we can now know almost everything due to surveillance. It is almost scary how people can get information about you.

I remember watching the movie “V for Vendetta” and seeing how surveillance plays a huge role in that film. Surveillance is used as a means of catching so called “terrorists”. In the movie, the main character V is trying to overthrow the government (for political and personal reasons) and is being watched every second by video cameras and microphones places all throughout the city of London. Although, V was doing something that doesn’t seem right to us, this could be seen as an invasion of privacy by the government as well as a hindrance on V’s freedom of speech and expression. The government had the power to see almost anyone and the use of cameras and video footage really bring to life that V and others around London were being watched constantly. They used surveillance in a menacing way to stop the basic freedoms. It is supposed to inflict a fear in a panoptic sort of way. When I watched this movie, it made me question if I really had all the privacy I thought I had and that really bothered me. None of us know what goes on in government offices. Are our nation’s leaders really telling the truth? Are we being watched as we live our day-to-day lives? It can definitely cause of a little paranoia. I fully understand that in some cases surveillance can be a good thing. Video cameras in convenience stores and banks have saved lives. However, it is a real privacy issue. This is a definite disadvantage of “smart mobs”. While they are good for many things, they are not very respectful of privacy.