How private can you really get without sacrificing convenience? Convenience being the comfortablity of the digital enviornment you use. It really depends on person to person, but how can I still have the convenience of using everday apps people use for Finance,Messaging,Social Media,etc.
P.S: Sorry if I’m posting a lot I just have questions.
There is no tangible metric against which to measure how private one can get while accounting for inconvenience. This has no good answer.
But this all depends on how much and many of the tools you’re currently using you are willing to give up and move to alternatives that offer similar services (albeit I would argue better).
It’s a hard question to answer because you have to define for yourself what’s private and what’s convenient, for me going without social media isn’t inconvenient at all because I don’t need or want to use it. But for someone else that might not be the case. There’s people in the world with no internet and no digital surveillance like the Amish and they’d probably say they’re happy.
No digital surveillance*
Not much if you continue to feed yourself to the digital machines. I use zero social media. I prefer to give my attention to learning. That’s me. That does not mean I have zero actual-social-interaction. I prefer personal connection over random dopamine hits. I limit my use of sms texting “requiring” social contact on less insecure apps like threema. While I will use sms texting I constrain the type and degree of personal about-me information I will divulge explicitly saying the likes “I won’t discuss that over open sms texting”. It might come down to your social standing or political power. I HATE the emotional neutrality of text. I prefer FaceTime or video, at least audio phone calls. My phone is for communicating and scheduling against a physical calendar. It is not a toy or distraction. But you do you. I don’t feel a need to be [continually] distracted or passively entertained. This is not a slight against you.
You might want to sketch out your app use benefits vs privacy costs that YOU are willing to sacrifice or the social costs of swimming against the grain.
“Do I really need instagram, snapchat, whatsap, facebook messenger, tiktok, pinterest to stay in touch with my friends? Are they unwilling to install ONE app to communicate with me?”
“How do I personally benefit from social media other than communication with IRL people?”
“Does it upset my heart to have the network know me so well?”
“Am I addicted to all these sources of entertainment? Can I abide the silence?”
“How much effort and cost am i willing to expend to regain some privacy ground?”
“How well do I understand the benefits of adblocking? What do my tech peers think of mitm-adblock?”
“Is my social standing high enough to mandate use of less insecure apps?”
“Am I comfortable with a political change that would apply selective enforcement to punish me for my views of the past now stored forever unretractibly ?”
“Is my national governance listing in a tyrannical direction? Should I be protecting myself or be content with the status quo like everyone else”
“by using encrypted communication do I make of myself an outlier for closer scrutiny?”
Thanks for the insights, everyone!
I appreciate the discussion. I will find the balance between privacy and convenience for my situation.