There is a new laptop advertisement making the rounds.

The focal point of HP’s new Spectre laptop is the camera kill switch. Advertisements all it “a better way” and attempt to laugh at technology-users habit of covering webcams with stickers. What is striking however, is the blatant disregard of what may cause technology uses to have such a paranoia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLmr8aktD3w

Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy and refers to the who can access what you display, store or provide on the internet¹. In the most serious of cases, this involves personally identifying information, but it can also refer to smaller things like cookie profiling to provide individualised ads¹.

As the public becomes more aware of the grey areas of the internet, many are becoming willing to giving up aspects of privacy in return for the convenience of technology. In turn, those who are more cautious are feeding the growing market of privacy protection tools such as VPNs, anti-virus software and apparently, camera kill switches². This is understandable because the cost of giving up the internet to ensure privacy is extremely high and unworkable in most areas of today’s western culture².

Internet privacy is feared and often misunderstood, and the truth is, for those who do cover their webcams with stickers, this new computer is likely not the solution.

1. https://www.purevpn.com/blog/what-is-internet-privacy-scty/
2. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/08/when-it-comes-to-internet-privacy-be-very-afraid-analyst-suggests/

The structure and delivery of education has largely not kept up with the tools that the digital age can provide. The exception is home schooling!

The internet has helped the expansion of home schooling, with the U.S.A home school community at least doubling between 1999 and 2012¹. Access to resources and curricula has increased as online programs such as Khan Academy have become staples for internet connected students, home-schooled or not¹.

The increase in amount and quality of home-schooling opportunities allows for education to be accessible to families with logistical challenges, special needs or fans of alternate learning methods.

Additionally, home-schooling allows for a smoother incorporation of skills widely accepted to be vital in the education of students for an ever-changing future including creative thinking, entrepreneurship and interdisciplinary learning².

The question of how best to teach the next generation is not new, and answers often include the use of technology to some degree. However, home schooling somewhat achieves a more abstract goal: changing the student-teacher hierarchy².

1. https://www.accreditedschoolsonline.org/k-12/online-home-schooling/
2. https://hackernoon.com/education-in-a-digital-age-db3063214407
3. Picture from: https://clipartart.com/categories/back-to-school-backpack-clipart.html

Despite what nostalgia tells us, the issues with modern journalism and news distribution did not begin with the transition to digital and internet-based news. News coverage in the twentieth century underwent conglomeration, increasing bipartisanship and influence from advertisers. In fact by 1900, more than two thirds of revenue at most of the U.S.A’s eighteen thousand newspapers was from advertising¹. This changed the relationship between journalists, distributors and readers as those who wanted to be informed became consumers¹.

The future of journalism lies in the fundamental problem that quality reporting is expensive and in an age of access to free information, readers are unwilling to pay for it. Readers are far more likely to be complacent in the quiet collection of their data and the sneaky promotion of native advertising that is fundamental to free news publishers such as Buzzfeed.

“We are for the first time in modern history, facing the prospect of how societies would exist without reliable news”

Alan Rusbridger, Guardian Editor-in-Chief

Some have chosen to catastrophise the perceived decrease in quality news, including editor-in-chief of the Guardian Alan Rusbridger who thinks “we are for the first time in modern history, facing the prospect of how societies would exist without reliable news”, and in some ways this is true. Technology is often at the forefront of any conversation about the future of journalism and yet it has the potential to isolate anyone without a reliable connection².

Truthfully, the future of journalism lives in the adaptability of the modern medium, the internet. Journalists must learn to utilise all forms of media in order to keep future audiences engaged².

1. Lepore, J. Does Journalism Have A Future? The New Yorker. 2019 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/28/does-journalism-have-a-future
2. Wyde, R. What is the future of journalism? The Guardian. 2015 https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/apr/15/what-is-the-future-of-journalism