Little Bee 3

Third Entry:

“Little Bee 3”. This was the name I used in the early 90’s when the two-way radio was my family’s means of communication between Batangas and Antipolo (my dad was Sugar Bee, mom was Lady Bee, my ate’s were Little Bee 1 and 2 lol). It took years to get a PLDT landline! There was one time my sister chanced upon a lady and a guy having a conversation over the radio and she decided to butt in. Needless to say, the lady girl was annoyed and said something like, “Bata, kung wala ka magawa matulog ka na lang ha?”.

Even then, when technology was not yet so advanced, privacy was already an issue. When it comes to the issue of privacy and how it’s being “invaded” by the kind of technology we have now, I think it is a tradeoff that we, the users, have agreed to. We friendster/ed, multiply (no pun intended), twitter, facebook, blog, and we use these for stalking purposes as well. We have seen photos, watched videos, listened to conversations that we were not supposed to see and hear. It’s the chismoso/chismosa in all of us and maybe even our desire, hidden or not, accepted or denied, to be “known” to people other than our family and real friends. You know what they say about celebrities and privacy, that the two are mutually exclusive, that losing their privacy is the price they pay for being too famous. I guess the same applies to us, the lay people, but at a downgraded (or is it upgraded?) version. When we put ourselves out there, we should be aware of its consequences. We should be discerning users. When the law is not able to respond to the issue of privacy in ICT (Will it ever be able to? Should it?), the more that we need to be careful with what we do. And we should always keep in mind the golden rule. You wouldn’t want your recit-gone-wrong posted on youtube, would you? :p