It is strongly recommended that you include your outline in the body of your essay by using the outline as section titles. The headings below are there to remind you how section and subsection titles are formatted.

World Wide Web – or wieso, weshalb, warum?

-- By MarvinGalloway - 09 Oct 2020

Wieso?

The title of this essay refers to words that could be translated to mean the very same thing. The German words, wieso, weshalb, warum, and weswegen, in practice, translate to the English word why. They are used to ask a simple question in various different ways, which this essay is also attempting to do. Why are young people, myself included as a prime example, increasingly cautious about the way and manner in which we interact with modern technologies, yet simultaneously willing to ignore the many concerning aspects of the very same things we worry about. Whether we are talking about social media platforms, search engines, streaming services, video-chat software, e-commerce websites, or many others ranging from internet-connected personal assistants to chat applications, a common theme that unites most commercially successful versions of these is the willingness with which more and more people have embraced them to become part of their daily lives and routines. While topics such as data collection and security, privacy protection, and open access have been frequently discussed in academia, politics, and to some extent, mainstream media, many of us seem to acknowledge the fact that concerns are valid, yet only few choose to critically review their own habits and to question the capitalist structure on which the mentioned products or services are built upon, and the role that we (specifically, our data) play individually within the larger system. Why are we so willing to recognize warning signs about the things that many of us have integrated into our lives, while at the same time disregarding them blatantly?

Weshalb?

Perhaps it is the selbstverständlichkeit, to borrow another word from the German language, the taking for granted or obvious nature of a state of being, which has shaped our relationship with technology and big data, that is to blame for the current dynamic that exists. Our world has changed dramatically, at an exponential rate. My first cell phone was a Siemens A52. My families first personal computer used a Windows 2000 operating system and I still recall the lengthy process of having to dial into the quite expensive 2,000 kbit connection. We treated these things as revelations, as ways to connect to the world and lower transaction costs. Yet, we did so without much caution or concern regarding our own relationship with the tools we were using. The internet, or more broadly the devices that have allowed us to interact with others, slowly became a staple in our daily lives. We accepted and appreciated the many ways in which daily task seemingly became easier to manage, blindly allowing ourselves to engage in a type of technology-euphoria. To clarify, these very things are in no way or shape bad developments, however, as we and our technology evolved together, we also became complacent when it came to questioning the mechanics of that relationship.

Warum?

While numerous experts and consumer protection advocates warned us for years about the dangers of data collection and algorithms that are designed to predict our behavior in order to benefit all kinds of actors, whether political, commercial, or others, we ignored such alarmist notions. Instead, many of us blindly engaged in various types of transparency when it came to our communications, interactions, and actions in the web. We likely did so because we did not bother to engage in a critical discourse that would have allowed us to question what happens to our data and what purposes it could be used for. After all, using social media services, for example, has replaced to a certain extent many of our normal human interactions. One who chose not to partake, in effect isolated him or herself from our peers. It would be difficult to assign blame for this development to the very users to whom social media sites are advertised towards, a particular young demographic. Many of us came into contact with smartphones, social media, and the internet at very young ages during which one could not necessarily have expected us to engage in critical thought regarding future privacy concerns. Thus, it begs to question, wieso, weshalb, and warum did the previous generation let itself get coerced into allowing big technology companies to harvest and utilize our data in ways that itself could not accurately predict? Maybe there is no blame. Maybe it is simply the result of very human actions that tend to welcome so called progress, with little caution for worrisome aspects, until those very things become visible and overtake the positive effects that we gain from them. If that is the case, then it is our duty and responsibility to further engage in questioning the status quo without ever stopping or becoming complacent, as not doing so would be a sign of ignorance.

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