The True Cost of the Internet

I have been such a fool.

It’s funny. When I used to mindlessly scroll through Facebook, I remember encountering a flurry of over-the-top nostalgic “back in the day” memes. Boomers are obsessed with them, as if their particular upbringings led to a successful generation that didn’t screw over generation after generation to come. That being said, I remember in particular a post that talked about how kids “had it good” before the internet came along. They could “play in the streets until the streetlights came on” and “walk to the grocery store themselves” and that “not every little dumb thing they did was on display and recorded for good measure..” Ya know, the first two are true and all, but the last one just struck me.

My life has been on display for the world to see.

I visited my first chat room at age 14 when I had to fight my siblings for the use of the computer if they were on the phone. A/S/L? I would ask random anonymous shadows in this exciting and complicated new world. I talked to AOL bots, I chatted with high school friends, I displayed my emo bullshit for all of LiveJournal to see, and when the glorious time finally came to receive a college email, I signed up for Facebook faster than you can say “Why in the hell would I do something like that?”

Form after form, agreement after agreement. Clickety-click. Clackety-clack. When my email was getting too gummed up and spammed? I made another one for free. Yahoo offered them, Gmail too. Filled out more forms, checked more boxes, signed more digital agreements. Terms and Conditions? You betcha, who gives a flying F*** what I have just signed up for, it’s a free email damnit and it has more storage than I will ever need in my lifetime.

When something bad happened? I’d post about it. Ate dinner with friends? Post about it. Where I was, who I was with. “Don’t forget to tag me. Make sure you can see my face.” I’d say. My face, everywhere on Facebook. Picture after picture. Day after day. Privacy update, just checked the box and pressed “OK”. Took quizzes to see who my spirit animal burrito was. They only wanted to compile my information and then the quiz was free. It’s free. Facebook was free. All free. Smiled for my free photo storage. Rant about how I was feeling and tell the world all about it, the more specific, the better. Poured out all my personal information into the dark, gloomy box full of people.

Then, Facebook was on my phone. A game-changer. Took lots of selfies. Let the world know where I was going and where I had been. No need to tag anymore, Facebook knew my face, Facebook knew everything about me. Upped my game with Instagram, recorded things and plopped them on YouTube. Music covers, and then videos about my life, dirty, gritty details in order to get views. I needed views and subscribers and attention and love. It was all free, and everyone else was doing it. EVERYONE else was doing it. So it seemed.

My kids came along and I plastered their every moment to my Facebook wall. My own personal baby book for each. Check in at the hospital, post a picture, check in when I get back home. See ads for cute baby clothes in my feed, click on them. Feed my baby, feed Facebook, feed the baby, feed Facebook. It’s all free, it doesn’t cost anything. Check more boxes, sign more agreements, see less friends, see less things, see more ads. Check in, check out, check in, check out. After all, it’s free. It’s free.

NOTHING’S FREE.

I wish I had realized this at 14. I wish I had understood at 17. I wish I had not put my whole life on display and sold it to the highest corporate bidder for some “free” stuff.

Small companies that started out as tiny social medias, grew like weeds and were uprooted and replanted by Google. With surveillance nearly anywhere, and robot-dogs to keep the order, Google is almost seemingly unstoppable.

How could we have let this happen?

Brainwashing? Apathy? Putting too much trust in one or two companies? The internet was intended to be a way to bring the world together, and it has, but everything has a price. People wanted easy access to all the nice things the internet had to offer. A myriad of search engines could have won out. Yahoo was quite close at one point or another. Do any of you recall AskJeeves? Or any of the other late 90s/early 2000s contenders? When search engines were just that, and not giant conglomerates looking to take over the world?

Call me paranoid, but Google has too much power. Google has the whole world mapped out via satellite, and with the help of super-computers can practically pinpoint where any given person in the world is, with some exceptions. This is especially true if someone has been generous in handing out their own personal information. For years, these social media sites and email companies have been gathering and compiling information on every citizen and building a giant portfolio of our likes, dislikes, habits, compulsions and locations. It is getting harder every day to stay anonymous. Google blames online bullying for wanting a zero-anonymity policy.

Bullshit.

Google wants to know who you are so they can keep track of you. And now that they are working for the Federal government, the information they have compiled is extremely valuable.

This whole time people have been brainwashed into thinking that it was “big brother” watching over us against our will.

Turns out we have been telling “big brother” all of our secrets voluntarily. Giving ourselves up voluntarily. Turning over our freedom voluntarily, through trusting that a company that once touted they would “do no evil”, actually was just playing us a fool.

The things we’ve been offered were never free, and now, neither are we