In this day and age, have we become too connected?

How much of your day is spent “connected?’ How long are you iChat, iGoogle, AIM, or Yahoo? How much time is spent on Facebook, Myspace, even Blackboard? Did you pause between visiting sites to order a textbook from Amazon.com. a pizza from PapaJohns.com, and book a flight home at KanooTravel.com? Did you video chat today? Finally, how many text messages did you send and receive and how many phone calls did you place and receive?

The fact is, we are a connected people. Take a piece of paper and draw a stick figure in the middle of the page and then begin drawing lines from the center of the page to circles that represent online entities that hold information about you. These lines start getting crossed very quickly. Most bills are now paid online. How much does your bank know about you? When you consider networks between you and the rest of the world, things quickly become complicated.

So what exactly happens to all the data that we send out in a day? This is a troubling question. Several things have happened in the past few weeks should give each of us pause when we think of how much privacy we really have. The Lower Merion School District of Pennsylvania issued over 2000 laptops in two high schools. Each computer came with a vague, overly-worded, arcane user agreement that, in too many words, explained to parents that the school could spy on their kids if need be. Of course, the term “spy” was never used. But what do you call it when a school district can remotely activate a computer’s webcam to get still images of students? The school district argues that the web cams were only used to take still photos in order to locate missing computers. While this might be true, a parent stated the issue quite poignantly when she said, “My daughter was so upset when she found out the school was using remote monitoring software to take still images of students that she called me at work. She said ‘Mom, that computer goes with me everywhere. It is open almost all the time, even when I am dressing in my bedroom.’”

The case of remote monitoring and user privacy in the Lower Merion School District is not an isolated one. Google, the embodiment of American technology and ingenuity, recently rolled out its latest product, Google Buzz. Buzz is a social networking extension of Google’s popular Gmail service. By default, Buzz was activated with all Gmail accounts. It allowed anyone, or anyone “following” you to see your Gmail contacts as well as other user information. The backlash to Google’s buzz was swift and definitive – users were not happy having their personal information, especially personal contacts, shared without consent. In one extreme case, a woman was being followed via Buzz by an abusive ex-boyfriend who was able to learn of her current employer as well as her new partner. A lawsuit has been filed with the FCC concerning the rollout of Buzz without prior notification to Gmail subscribers.

What about your cell phone? Not that long ago, a phone was merely a phone. If you had the money for an upgrade, it was also capable of taking fuzzy still shots. Today, phones can easily replace computers in classrooms, long road trips, and in hotels. We have not reached the point where the iPhone is ideal for hammering out an English essay. Nonetheless, your phone contains a wealth of information about you. A stolen iPhone can lead to access of someone’s contacts, my calendar, some usernames and passwords, Facebook and MySpace accounts, as well as a world of pics and video. This article is not meant to sound alarmist or herald the coming of the Antichrist. It is, however, meant to bring attention to a growing problem in the digital age. What do we make of our digital selves and how protected are we. Certainly, these are difficult questions but well-worth pondering.