-- JonathanGuerra - 14 Oct 2010

Convenience rules the day.

Friend: So you don’t use Easy Pass?

Me: No I don’t.

Friend: Why not?

Me: I honestly hate the idea of there being a record when I am on the island and when I am off.

Friend: Well you have obviously never had to wait forty-five minutes in line for the money booth, because once you do you won’t give a damn about whether there’s a record of when you are and aren’t in Manhattan.

I certainly considered getting Easy Pass after my first time waiting what seemed like forever to pay toll, but the privacy implications served as a sufficient deterrent from getting it. This decision, given my others, may very well be considered arbitrary. Nearly all of the purchases I make, at least one a day, are made with a credit card. I send SMS text messages throughout the day and make several phone calls, and where would I be without Google maps for blackberry? Well, lost.

Why do I do this? Well it is essentially a convenience/privacy calculus. Given that my cell phone is a constant snitch, my decision to avoid Easy Pass is less than rational, but I just cannot give it up. Steve Rambam in his lecture “Privacy is Dead – Get Over it” expressed that convenience is what has led to the changing of attitudes towards privacy: "The average American finds a very healthy acceptable balance between privacy and convenience, they give up some privacy and get a lot of convenience…Things have changed because self-contribution has changed”. Why am I on Facebook? Well, I like to stay connected with friends that I don’t see regularly and banter with the friends I do.

Everything I post is archived and will live forever, but somehow I feel okay about this because in a sense I am in control because I make active choices on what to divulge. Indeed, I am also in control of whether I make purchases with a credit card and whether I use a cell phone; however, these concessions are done less comfortably because the bargaining power is wholly lopsided. I cannot function socially with my peers without my cellphone as easily as a person from an older generation can. My generation is one of rescheduling and tardiness due in large part to the use of instant communication. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/26/fashion/26CELL.html. Because my generation has become accustomed to calling and changing or delaying plans so easily, we do not think twice when we do it and we do it often. Anytime I have met a friend within the last month there has been a text either from me or the person I am meeting to expect tardiness. Thus, if it were not for the snitch in my pocket, I would spend much of my time waiting on people who will never show or waiting longer than I should. This propensity is so culturally engrained and acceptable now that if I did not have a cell phone I would expect reluctance from my friends in scheduling anything with me as they would know that punctuality would be necessary. Hence, convenience wins, and I keep my cell phone alive.

Fortunately my cell phone is a smart phone because how else would I have found that amazing Italian restaurant in the East Village or that quirky bar on 14th Street—which has a record of every time I have been there. http://www.totallawyers.com/legal-articles-bar-id-scan.asp. Of course Yelp Mobile is not offering great recommendations out of good will. They stand to make money by selling my preferences to companies who specialize in precision targeted marketing. Unfortunately, I may be divulging more information than my preferred cuisine and most frequented locations. http://www.safeinternet.org/blog/mobile-privacy-concerns-your-phones-app-spying-you. They may be getting access to my notes, contacts, and possibly my media, but I hate spending money at a restaurant that sucks. Convenience wins.

So convenience wins out and I actively use my cell phone, my credit cards, g-this and g-that, and companies continue to data mine allowing for predictive analysis of my every move. http://www.information-management.com/specialreports/20050215/1019956-1.html. I do not like it, but what will I do about it? Quite frankly, I will do nothing. Sure I will carry on a conversation with a likeminded friend of mine and talk about how there should be laws that protect me from Google archiving everything I do, but this conversation will probably take place on g-chat. I am complacent, and I am not sure why. I do not like my complacency at all, but I am sure that I am not alone. I do not actually think that if privacy is dead we should "get over it" but I sure do act like it.