“Smartphones make us zombies! They’re turning our children into mindless slaves!”
- Some arsehole who doesn’t understand technology.
I love technology. I will advocate it to anyone who will listen. There have been occasions where the people in my life have bandied the word ‘addiction’ around and I can’t honestly say this is without merit.
I set an alarm in the morning to make sure I’m awake at least 30 minutes before I have to get out of bed so I can spend the time checking out the usual stuff on my phone (Facebook, the apple ‘News’ app and Instagram).
When I leave the house, I put my headphones on and either listen to music or a podcast while I check the Twitter stream.
My work involves a computer, so I stare at that screen for a few hours behind a desk.
On breaks and lunch, I usually flick between Imgur and Facebook.
When I leave, I put my headphones back in, fire up another podcast, and read through the twitter stream on my way home.
Once I get home and eat, I sit down with the laptop at another (much nicer) desk and check in with pretty much the same sites every day (The Verge, Gizmodo, Wired, Reddit, and YouTube). While I’m doing this, my Apple TV will be playing something from Netflix as background noise.
I’ll get into bed, and read my kindle or a few news sites for an hour or so before I go to sleep.
I am the first to admit that a lot of my free time is spent interacting with technology, but I don’t see that as a problem. In the entire history of humanity, there have never been more opportunities to learn. You can name almost any skill that comes to mind and if there isn’t at least a YouTube tutorial video showing how to do something step by step, I guarantee there’s a website that will teach you. So let's say you spend your day reading news articles online, listening to Podcasts and browsing Reddit. What’s the downside to all this reading? It’s better than staring at a TV for 12 hours watching some fake bimbo keep her light on for some walking haircut in a tight shirt.
“They’re making people more and more anti-social.”
- The same arsehole as before.
As my friends and I are all responsible twenty-somethings, we pretty much spend most of our time working. This means we may not get to hang out as much as we did when we were teenagers.
If it wasn’t for WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, I would genuinely only be able to speak to my friends once a month, maybe less. No one will phone each other, mind, and this is something I’m very ok with despite having a phone package with unlimited minutes (Landline, you say? Landline?! Do I look fucking Victorian to you?). Technology allows me to be MORE social, to catch up with my friends during the week and, (I’m assuming, here, as I’ve never actually tried to buy one) saves me a fucking fortune on carrier pigeons.
I know a number of older people who barely speak to their mates on a regular basis unless there’s a major life event or they happen to run into them on the street. No regular phone calls, no letters, no contact unless it’s a special occasion.
So who’s anti-social now, Maureen?!
Let's take this a step further. There are a few friends I have that I never would have met if it wasn’t for the Internet. My mate Laura lives in Preston. We’ve known each other since we were like 14 and we met on some Buffy the Vampire Slayer forum. We’ve met precisely once and I still speak to her on a regular basis. Where do I speak to her? ON THE INTERNET!
“They can find me anywhere! I don’t want to be tracked!”
- Go on, guess who.
Privacy is the next boogeyman rolled out by the tech nay-sayers (also, an excellent name for a band). Protecting yourself online is important, but a lot of people don’t seem to grasp this. They put a lot of detail about themselves online and then worry about someone finding them. However, they only do this with technology. This is like leaving your doors open and then complaining that someone stole your shit. Of course, they did! You left the bloody door open! Having an online presence works in the exact same way. If you don’t protect yourself and your details, then you can’t complain when they’re misused.
So, here are some quick and easy steps to protect yourself online:
Change your password.
If your password contains your name, or your date of birth, or a combination thereof, change it now. It should have no personal details at all. Go for something nonsensical like “BananaC0pterz229”. Random words, a capital letter or two and some numbers. This will make your password almost impossible to guess.
Update your security questions.
Remember the big iCloud hack a while back where all the celebrities had their booby pics leaked online? In the weeks following it, it turned out the hackers guess their security question answers through information available online. So, if you have your secondary school listed on your Facebook page, and one of your security questions is “Which secondary school did I attend?”, you’re gonna make life a lot easier for anyone wanting access to your info. If that’s the easiest security question, then change it to a nickname. Something only you and your friends called it. You went to Hunter House? Update it to ‘Haunter House’. Whatever makes it harder to guess.
Change the passcode on your mobile device.
Seriously, the amount of people who use the year they were born to get into their phones or tablets is huge. Most phones now allow for an alphanumeric passcode. So instead of “1990” being used to unlock your phone, you can use “SouthPark2020”. It sounds like that’s going to be a pain to enter every time, but it’s going to be an extra level of protection and besides, most phones have fingerprint readers these days anyway.
Disable location services.
This is a big one if you use Twitter a lot. A lot of apps take your location data when you use them and that’s pretty scary. Whats scarier is the fact that some apps, like Twitter, can post these by default. If you don’t want people to know where you live, I would recommend not letting your phone know. Also, when you do disable location services, be prepared for your battery life to improve big time.
Check your photos before posting them.
I upload a lot of pictures online (too many, some would say) but I make sure they don’t have anything that could identify my address, or place of work. You’d be surprised how many photos online show peoples post or their works logo.
Be very careful about what you do on public wifi.
This isn’t one you hear a lot about, but it’s something I’m always very wary of. Let's say you’re in your local Starbucks, having your 20oz Strawberry and Cream frappe. You’re on your laptop or phone, connected to their wifi, browsing a site and see something you need to buy then and there. So you put your card details in and purchase it. Little do you know that the guy next to you has set up a fake network called ‘Starbucks UK’ and you’re not only online connected to it, but he sees everything you run through it, including the card details you used to purchase that vintage coffee pot from Etsy.
There’s a simple workaround to this. It’s called a VPN or a Virtual Private Network. It means that any traffic coming out of your computer is encrypted. So even if you are connected to a false network, the person running it can’t see a thing. This means you're free to use public wifi without the fear of having any details caught by a 3rd party. My VPN of choice is ‘TunnelBear’ and I use it daily. It’s a paid service, but there are free VPNs out there.
Think before you post.
Finally, the most obvious and helpful tip I can give. Before you post anything online, think to yourself “Would I feel safe if a total stranger got their hands on this?”
If the answer is no, then don’t post it.
I say this every time I post, but I’m hoping to make this a regular blog. Once a week, if my schedule allows it. If you’re worried about your data online or have any questions about the above, my details are in the ‘Contact section’. Happy to answer any questions.
-GWB.
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