Sunday, February 21, 2010

Math is Everywhere

The article was about how math is used; it is used in everything now. It is used to track the way people buy products, where they buy products, and the way they react to ads. Google uses it to see which sites people are clicking on, and what sites they are buying things from. All of this monitoring, does have it’s downsides though, even though companies will be saving money what about people’s personal privacy, do they still deserve that?

I think that the main problem with this whole thing is that idea of lost privacy. I don’t necessarily want people watching all of the things that I buy, and all of the things that I click on the Internet even if it isn’t inappropriate. So as the article pointed out I would probably take measures to see that the companies couldn’t track what I said, bought and clicked on. The article also pointed out that the government is using the same data to find terrorists, and track diseases. So it is a mixed bag whether we should trust this whole database of information about us. What is interesting and more concrete though is that people who are going into college right now should probably major in something math related if they are at all into it because that is where the market is. At least that is what the article said. I disagree. I think that it would be sad if all these bright people decided to go into math simply because that is where the jobs lie. People should follow their passion. This was an interesting article but I disagree with it in some aspects, I don’t think that our lives should be so closely monitored even if it does help homeland security or our health, it isn’t natural, or healthy in my opinion. And I don’t want my life to be run by either a government or by industries.

1 comment:

  1. This is a very interesting point about advertising and privacy. I see what your saying but i don't think that companies use this spy on or watch anyone, they simply look at trends and statistics. As far as the government is concerned privacy laws have been debated for a long time, it would be interesting to see how big of a roll google and other search engine play in this debate, it is a very interesting point. Also agree with you that everyone should follow their passions when it comes to getting a job, but a little math is good for everyone, anyone from fashion designers to store managers and CEO's will use math sometime in their career. I wouldn't say that everyone should be math focused, but it is interesting how math appears in our everyday lives, even where we least expect it.
    Great thoughtful post!

    ReplyDelete