Has Technology Gone Too Far?

Over the past week there has been a lot of press and talk about the latest feature, discovered by accident, of our beloved iPhones and iPads running iOS 4. Two tech enthusiasts from the UK stumbled upon this information while poking around data backups from their iPhones. Their investigation led them to discover that close to a year’s worth of information was being stored on the phones. This information, when put onto a map, showed just about everywhere they and their phones had traveled during the past year.

This discovery has made many people uncomfortable, and even a little angry. However, similar information has been stored on cell phones for years—having never generated much buzz as it wasn’t readily available to the average user. When I first saw this report on the news, my initial reaction wasn’t that of surprise, rather I found the news to be a bit expected. We live in a digital world. We want things on demand, and we want them now. Remember when you needed to make a phone call and you had to wait your turn for a phone booth? Try finding a phone booth now. Remember when you received a phone book in the mail and it was big enough to serve as your little sister’s booster seat? That same phone book now is not much thicker than your average monthly magazine—which is now only available in a digital format.

We live in a wired world, and if we can’t find it on Google, or don’t have an ‘App for that,’ it seems like we can’t access the information. With all of this instant gratification, it’s not surprising that someone is tracking us—after all, that’s what technology is all about in my opinion. Getting one step ahead of the game is also Apple’s focus, so whether the tracking was intentional or a programing glitch, the revelation didn’t surprise me. I accept that we live in a digital world and my need to have everything at my fingertips comes with a few risks and trade-offs.