Big Brother is Already Watching

It's already the 11th? Yeah, still not turning on my laptop much. On the plus side, I've been reading and sleeping more than getting on the Internet.

Speaking of which - I think it's really creepy that these are the kinds of ads that show up on Facebook.

Even the game says "Beware."

The vaccine one I don't understand, but all the others are directly related to pages I like, my stated religion, and even this blog. Linking to my blog posts has tipped Facebook off to my publication aspirations (although they are several years ahead of themselves in advertising book publishing when I haven't even written one book).

Facebook should not know these things about me! Advertisers should not know these things about me! If I didn't rely on it so much to communicate and keep up with other people, I'd delete my Facebook in an instant. I've thought about it many times but never followed through.

I know the whole personalized ads thing is really old news, but it still bothers me.

There are a lot of things that I love about the Internet, things I say I can't live without. However, there's a big tradeoff to these - privacy. It terrifies me to think that people can easily find my address, phone number, hometown, school, social security number with just a little digging and clever hacking. Contemporary America is a scary, scary place.

Yet another reason I love reading (specifically fantasy) so much: people in books have an easier time reinventing themselves or disappearing without a trace.

More Blessed Word Count: 17,599