Taking Back Your Life
by Miki Saxon
Today is the first day of the rest of your life.
Your life as lived in the real world with real people and real relationships.
What we’ve discovered is that technology might be great at delivering what we want in the moment, but it’s less great at giving us what we need over the long term.
The biggest step forward in the world of technology in 2018 was the realisation that we have to set boundaries in our relationship with technology to protect our humanity. (…) It was the year we realised that the consequences of allowing technology into every aspect of our lives aren’t all positive.
If, after all Zuckerberg’s lies and shenanigans you actually decide to delete Facebook from your life, you need to remember that it owns Instagram and WhatsApp, so they would need to go, too. If that works for you, here are two explanations of what to do. The first explains how to delete all three, the second focuses on Facebook.
You can take a less drastic approach than full deletion, yet give yourself far more control, by leaving the apps on your laptop, but deleting them from your phone (except for some Samsung models). They’ll still be there, but you’ll need to make a conscious choice to check them instead of responding like Pavlov’s dog to the notifications.
If even that is too much, start by turning off notifications.
You will be surprised at the difference it makes.
Don’t ignore the fact that tech is addictive and can take over your life in the same way as alcohol or drugs. And just like alcohol and drugs there are support groups and rehab centers for tech addiction. Even if you don’t believe you are actually addicted, check it out; it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
If instead you just want to take much more control, here are some links that can help you make conscious choices.
Use Location History Visualizer to gain a better understanding of what Google’s location tracking means to you. And understand that Apple isn’t immune.
One humongous thing you can do to shrink your online footprint is to switch from Google to Startpage.com. The lack of ads makes a huge difference in the quality of your browsing.
And take a close look at this infographic on how to make yourself invisible on the net.
Invest in a VPN; I have Avast’s, since I also use their virus software and consider the small annual charge to be one of the best investments I’ve made.
Here’s one on stopping robocalls on both iPhone and Android.
You don’t have to do it all at once, but you do need to think through tech’s effects on your life and your relationships and then go from there.
PS This just in. Amazon’s Ring, along with dozens of other IoT devices are famous for their laz security.
Beginning in 2016, according to one source, Ring provided its Ukraine-based research and development team virtually unfettered access to a folder on Amazon’s S3 cloud storage service that contained every video created by every Ring camera around the world. (…) The Information, which has aggressively covered Ring’s security lapses, reported on these practices last month.
So before you buy one stop and think, “would I want whatever this device learns about me and my family shared across the strangers and media?” If the answer is “no” then you should probably skip it.
