system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Personal privacy is more important than the conveniences of modern technology with smart phones and social media

Privacy has become less and less of a priority for people over the course of the smart phone evolution. Our lives depend on them and how much "easier" they make our day. You can do everything from mobile banking, shopping, dating, gaming, photography, GPS, the list is really endless at this point, but there's a trade off that comes with all of these benefits, and that comes in the form of privacy, or lack of, and the internet. What you put out there becomes a beacon of information about you with social media and anything else you put online. How many times have you heard that "your phones always listening." Your favorite apps request permissions to access your microphone, camera and location. For some people, they casually click accept like it's not a big deal, but it is. 

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Everything we've put into smart phones to make our lives easier used to be a normal thing we'd go out and do instead of do from our phones. Before social media, you had to make more of an effort to stay in touch with family and friends, but you did it. Phone calls, hand written emails, and just generally staying in touch. Dating meant going out and meeting someone in person, not getting to know then over text before you've even met face to face. Going to the store, visiting the bank and anything social whatsoever was done in person. Looking at a map, getting lost but finding your way around eventually, but all of these things were seen as something "fixable" and able to be improved by taking away the "work." Now people are so fixated on their phones and what they do that they don't want to even consider going without them, so privacy is signed away without concern, because it's more important to the masses for life to be easier than retain their privacy. 

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Now, I can't ignore that smartphones and where technology as a whole has come is also beneficial for a bunch of other reasons that don't "fix" our lives as much as they enhance them, but all of these capabilities dinish real interactions and investing in the world before it became an option to sit out and do it all from our cell phones instead. It's not worth our privacy, and more people should be worried about it, but they just don't care because the convenience in their lives outweighs everything else. Privacy is more important than what your smart phone offers.

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I'd be open to changing my view if I can be convinced of a smart phone benefit/convenience that can't be solved with a real world equivalent for similar results. An example being mobile banking vs going into the bank, going to the grocery store vs online shopping, etc. If there's a function or tech advancement so massive and necessary in our lives, what is it and why is it worth more than my privacy?

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CMV.


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Edit: I wasn't very clear on why person privacy is important to me, so let me add that: A lot of it falls on trust, and whether or not a company or these app providers use your information or not, it's still your information. When you share something personal by word, it's trusting the person you tell with that information. If my smartphone can freely use my microphone, location, search history to personalize ads or make suggestions even outside of the time I'm using their product. There's a lack of control and boundaries in one's life when your phone and these apps can just tune into your conversations and listen whenever, or use your location to make suggestions I never asked for. I understand that the world revolves around huge corporations making money, but there's such a thing as freedom of speech and a degree of control over how what I say can be used, whether it's to make my life easier, or just annoy me with copious amounts of ads and spam related to 1 thing I might have mentioned in an out loud conversation or searched on Google. I'm of the opinion that my info should be mine unless I explicitly share it with an entity, not just for when they want to tune in and listen.
gpt
Why does your personal privacy matter to billion dollar companies?

**You're not special.**

You personally don't matter to them. **You are numbers and data** in an algorithm that lets them make money.

The reason why personal privacy isn't more important than many other conveniences of modern technology is because **the type data your giving them doesn't matter in the grand scheme**. **People don't care because at the end of the day they get a better product.** In 99.99999% of cases these companies don't use your data in any way against you.

**So why is how often you buy cereal on amazon, or how often you drive to your friends house on Google maps in any way important?** Companies want money and personalizing it off of data makes more of it. Thats it.