Privacy in a Digital Age Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Privacy in a Digital Age - Essay Example Lastly, the most disturbing revelation of lives becoming public is that with our lives going big and digital, they have also gone empty and shallow. Life in this age has neither the comfort nor the warmth of a simple lifestyle which prevailed a few years back. Thus, opening the shutters of one’s private space and allowing the world to barge in is perhaps a deliberate and desperate attempt to create illusions of a happy and satisfied life. The recent years have witnessed a change in the attitude of people towards their work and career choices. Earlier, jobs were mainly considered as a means to earn money and lead a comfortable life. On the contrary, today people demand quality in their work along with a handsome package, which will aid them to glide through the ladder of success. As Sun Microsystems CEO Scott McNealy quite famously declared some time ago, â€Å"Privacy is dead, deal with it.† People today are so short of time that sometimes they do not even have a privat e life! A major chunk of a person’s life is spent in the public eye, and thus the question for an uninterrupted personal life is nothing but a vague cloud in a clear sky. Work-related matters are eating up the hours meant for spending quality time with the loved ones. On the other hand, the situation in previous years was in complete opposition. Personal and family life was given the first priority as people were not exposed to the joys of a modern lifestyle and thus, were not so ambitious. Moreover, the definition of privacy has changed in the present age. Today, personal information is given out at the drop of a hat. As mentioned in the JWT White Paper a few years back, â€Å"Citizens of modern societies live in a world of digital data, generating an information trail as they e-mail, shop with loyalty cards, surf the Web, and make wireless calls (WPP)†. This is nothing short of invasion of privacy, but is not noticed anymore. Talking about changing perceptions toward s privacy, the major devil is the internet. One can chat face-to-face with a stranger and post personal pictures on a public portal for the world to see. In midst of this structure of a never-ending social party, expecting any degree of privacy is nothing more than wishful thinking. As Simson Garfinkel writes in his book Database Nation, â€Å"We know our privacy is under attack. The problem is that we don’t know how to fight back (MSNBC).† This is exactly the dilemma which people today are facing as inhabitants of an overtly mechanized society. Whereas earlier, photographs used to be considered as the most vivid and intimate accounts of personal moments shared with special people, they have been stripped down to mere artwork put up for display. The most daunting outcome of the ailing condition of privacy is the brutal death of secrets. When personal lives are put up on display through social networking sites and one is constantly in contact with numerous people who kn ow as much about them as an illiterate knows a book, the idea of keeping things personal appears obsolete. Unlike this situation, in previous years people used to fiercely guard their private lives and the most personal issues were shared only with a handful of people. However, the temptation of telecasting one’s lives is so alluring that all other facets of real life appear vague. The internet has turned people into public mannequins which are on display all the

Homosexual marriage Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Homosexual marriage - Essay Example Same-sex marriage first became a reality in America in the year 2004, when the Supreme Court in Massachusetts actually ruled that it was necessary under the equal protections clause of the states Constitution. Connecticut in reality began permitting same-sex marriages in the fall of 2009. In April 2009, Iowas Supreme Court ruled in favor of permitting same-sex couples to marry, also giving advocates an important first victory in the nations heartland and thwarting the notion that only the Northeast will permit it. 7 April 2009 the Vermont Legislature made the difference. â€Å"Jim Douglass veto of a bill permitting gay couples to marry, mustering precisely enough votes to conserve the measure. This step made Vermont the first state to actually permit same-sex marriage through legislative action instead of the ruling of court.† (Boswell, John) Two more states--New Hampshire and New Jersey--recognize civil unions for same-sex couples; an intermediate step that supporters say has made same-sex marriage seem less scary. New England remains pivotal in same-sex marriage movement, with a campaign under way that will extend marriage rights to gay men and lesbians in all six of the regions states by 2012. The meaning of marriage gets completely redefined when two men marry each other and the same has become an issue that has come to the limelight. Gay marriage is a serious threat and it challenges the nature too and this is because two men can never reproduce and take their generation forward. They can adopt a child but they can never fulfill the gap left, that gap can only be fulfilled by a mother. The divorce rates are extremely high when two men or women marry each other and research goes to prove it. Heterosexual divorces are much less than homosexual divorces and this is another reason why people oppose gay marriages. Gay marriages have also come under intense scrutiny with regard to the tradition that the world has been following for many years. When