Going Abroad with Technology

Today my JOUR289I class diverged from the norm - instead of holding a regular class a panel of journalists from about ten different Middle Eastern countries (including Tunsia, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and  Morocco to name a few) was held in our classroom.  It was a lot of fun watching and listening to the discourse from the eleven very friendly and open people as they spoke to us, some in English but mostly in Arabic (two translators were present) in regards to the journalistic occurrences in their country. It surprised me (although it shouldn't have) just how different their worlds are from how the United States news manages to portray them.  The U.S manages to portray them as all being the same, but from the discussion held in the room it became very evident just how different they all are.  I am sad to admit that I did have an image of all Middle Eastern countries as being unable to express their thoughts and views on close to anything, but I am glad that through this forum that that belief was expelled.

Although there wasn't anything in regards to my topic that came up during the discourse, I still thought I'd share a few points.

I was very surprised at a few of the things which popped up in conversation; I think one of the main surprises was from the female journalist from Saudi Arabia.  As I remember it the question was what rights are afforded to females in the country as far as becoming journalists.  While one woman before her answered that women have virtually taken over the field of journalism in her country, the Saudi Arabian woman informed us that women there have no right to be journalists, are not allowed to attend school for journalism, and are only able to work within the field as freelancers.  Even more than that woman are not allowed to drive - this struck me as the biggest blow.  With no way to get to the story how can they be expected to write it?    The answer to that is of course that they aren't.  Furthermore, they are not allowed to hire a chauffeur until the age of 35 *another gasp* (the woman speaking was obviously much younger than this age btw), and taxis are inconvenient in the area which she works and lives.  Among her colleagues she is the only one with no way to transport herself.  After hearing these comments I had a ridiculous amount of respect for her and her work because I honestly don't know that I would have had the courage to overcome all of these barriers to do my work.  But thankfully from the looks of things the circumstance in the other countries represented are not as dire for women journalists.

On another note I was definitely able to appreciate a comment made by one of the panelists that even though there is some of information (in his country) that they get they are not supposed to pass on to readers/viewers/listeners if it is in regards to something they are not allowed to approach, if he still believes that that information should be given to the people he is able and willing to pass the information on to a colleague in another country nearby where the rules are not the same.  This way that information still spreads.  I think that as journalists this is a respectable action, as sometimes the people need to know information even if those in control don't want them to hear it.

Alot of other noteworthy things were mentioned but I won't recount every little detail.  But all in all today was a very good class.

Emerging Technology




http://basichealthcare.info/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/health-tech.jpg

  I like this picture because although it is more generic and less explanatory, it also encompasses the idea that emerging health care, which is getting better with time, is also capable of doing so with the assistance of technology, which is in this case represented through this laptop. 

Public Health in a Nutshell

www.health.gov/phfunctions/images/pubh_wh2.gif

I've seen this picture numerous times during my tenure as a Community Health major at UMD and I think it does a pretty good job at establishing the bases of what public health is and what it encompasses.  It's more of an explanatory photograph, as you can see from all of the words explaining the different portions, and I think that it does a good job establishing the main points - Research, Institute and Evaluate.

I Own aCell Phone... There is no longer a such thing as Privacy (Was there ever?...)

Young people, namely college students are generally assumed to be more savvy to technological changes, as we seem to be the first ones with the new smartphone, the new macBook, and the new mP3 player etc etc. For this reason it seemed an interesting topic to divulge into whether these same students were equally wary of the technology which we so desperately cling to.

Research has shown that even in our most secure state concerning our privacy we still remain completely insecure. As technology becomes more advanced, every aspect of our lives become more penetrable to others around us. Cell phones have become a necessity to everyday life and technology for cell phones have improved a lot in a short amount of time. While these advances have made possible things like Face Time on the iPhone 4, they have also brought about even more concerns over privacy.  Cell phones have evolved a great deal in the past few years, now many including GPS trackers, which are obviously able to lock and grasp where a person's phone(and therefore generally that person) is located. A person with a simpler phone might for this reason feel as though they are secure from this invasion, having none of the extra bells and whistles of today's smart phone. However, even the most simple of phones has to “communicate their location to a base station in order to carry or receive calls. Therefore, whenever a cell phone is in use, or set to receive calls, it effectively identifies the location of its user every few minutes” (Froomkin 1479). Although this feature can be very useful for example when a person is lost or missing, it can also be very invasive for someone who does not want any person with access to this system (including for example the government, solicitors or perhaps a spouse whom you have left for a very good reason) to know where they were. Each of the students surveyed, including those with only basic cell phones, were highly aware of the ability to track their phone.

Not only are we constantly being tracked on our cell phones, but there is also a lack of distinction in the law in regards to what defines our privacy in regards to our cell phones. There are many thoughts regrading this issue, but no consensus on what we can expect. “Some courts have allowed police to search a suspect’s phone without a search warrant, holding that a person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the phone directory of his cell phone. In contrast, other courts held that it was an invasion of privacy for a wireless company to disclose the content of text messages a police officer sent to coworkers without the officer’s consent (“privacyrights.org”)”. Previously law had to be erected against actions such as wiretapping, perhaps now the same thing will have to occur to protect ones text messages from being viewed by a police officer or other member of the law.

Faults of our own are now resulting in the loss of our privacy. For example the use of cellular phones in public has yet to stop being annoying for those who have to hear the conversation. But And while you are trying to convey your message to whomever you are proceeding to have your conversation with, you have managed to attract other listeners in the public. In what one researcher has identified as the “need-to-listen effect” (Monk, Fellas, Lay) by conversing in public and allowing for one half of a conversation you are in turn attracting the attention of those around you. In doing our survey I found that most of the males were not nearly as concerned with having their conversations overheard as were the females, and therefore did the least [meaning lowering their voices] to prevent this. The reasons behind this can only be speculated towards but perhaps this is due to the fact that females are often taught by society to be not only more careful, but also less trusting because there are people who are interested in taking advantage of you. These lessons that fathers and mothers have taught their daughters in regards to the guys who they date or a choice to walk alone in the dark may have carried over to this area of our survey. Or perhaps males just talk less on their phones. But once again only speculation.

Many people are clueless about the amount of information their cell phone can give away or retain about him or her. Actions that would generally be seen as charitable and giving can sometimes backfire when involving the new states of our technological world. For example, I'm sure most of us have seen ads asking for donations of used cell phones to different groups, whether the phones are going to deployed soldiers or people searching for work who are in need of a phone for example. These phones that we are probably no longer in need of are going toward a very good cause, however these devices could also contain valuable information pointing directly back to you on them. You may think that when you “delete” all of your contacts and text messages and other visible information that you are not longer connected with this phone. But in thinking that you would be wrong. “Similar to computers, choosing to delete information simply creates new space but the data is retained until enough new information is added to write over the old information” (“privacyrights.org”), there is a pretty decent chance that this information that information you think you have gotten ride of is still floating around on your device waiting to be permanently deleted (instructions for doing so should be found in your owners manual).

Cell phones:  Useful (and somewhat necessary) but invasive... But I'm still going to keep using mine...

Here's a link to the survey!

https://spreadsheets0.google.com/viewform?formkey=dDM3YjBHUlIydnVwZ29iRnN2dC1xN1E6MQ

“Fact Sheet 2b: Privacy in the Age of the Smartphone.” privacyrights.org. Privacy Rights Clearinghouse/UCAN, Sept 2010. Web. 13 Oct 2010. <http://privacyrights.org/fs/fs2b-cellprivacy.htm#7>.

Froomkin, A. Michael. “The Death of Privacy?.” Stanford Law Review. 52. 5 (2000): 1461-1543. Print

Monk, Andrew, Evi Fellas, and Eleanor Ley. “Hearing only one side of normal and mobile phone conversations.” Behaviours & Information Technology. 23.5 (2004): 301-305. Print

Can anything remain private once you put it online?

So I love Google. I love all the applications that Google comes out with such as Google Docs, Google Talk, Google Calender andI live my life by my gmail account,  it's the only email address which I regularly check. However, I am not comfortable with the idea of Google Health. Honestly I'm not particularly comfortable with any of my health information being put online. However, as uncomfortable as I am with the idea of Google Health I did except the Terms so that I could see what it entailed. The idea is great. Online health records make so much sense to have, especially for any person with a chronic health issue.

Google Health offers a collective way to view your medical records, set personal health goals, manage prescriptions, immunizations, and insurance. It all looks so good to me, and google even states that “Google uses sophisticated security techniques to help keep your information secure and private, and you always control how it's used. We will never sell your data. You are in control. You choose what you want to share and what you want to keep private“. And yeah somehow I cannot stomach the idea of putting information this personal online, even if it is under the lock of a password, because I have had my email account broken into before, and as this is a by-product of that email account my faith refuses to hold strong. With information such as how many abortions a woman has had, what STIs someone has, I just wouldn't feel safe. Hopefully I'm just unduly fearful, because I can see all health records being on some type of online system in the very near future.  

But, adding to my apprehensions about google Health are the fact that they are not represented as covered entities under HIPAA (The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability) Act of 1996, which lead to the establishment of certain national requirements in regards to a persons health information. With this said, when you agree to use Google Health you are also agreeing to allow Google to distribute your information to other Google services in addition to Google Health.  I can't really stomach anything that distributes my information to other services even if they are under the dame provider.  But then again, I also don't really believe that most of the things that we put online are actually private... Someone can always see what we do to some degree and I don't particularly think that this is any different.  


But maybe I'm just a conspiracy theorist.  Do you trust services which list your personal health information online?  


photograph from: http://cybernetnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/google-health-2.jpg