How would you feel, if some one decided to give you all of their attention? If every time you walked down a road, you felt a pair of eyes following your back? How would you feel if someone was constantly watching your every move, observing every breath of yours? Those prying, insistent eyes gazing fixedly, drinking in what you wear, what you eat and what you speak? Those eerie eyes which stare at you from the shadows following wherever you go, whom you meet where you sleep. And if those pair of eyes followed you into your house, watched you change and slept with you on your bed at night? And if one day they begin to control every aspect of your life? How would you feel? Flattered? Concerned? Irritated? Annoyed? Scared? Suffocated?
But what if that following gazing pair of eyes are actually your partners (Or rather the apps offering to be the virtual stalker? ) How would you feel then?
Ever since the bloom of the internet, technological advances are being achieved at an alarming rate. This advent of technology means better and easier life with the newer generations being more informed; more aware. However, like every coin, these improvements also have another side – these advancements come at a price – at the cost of ‘real life’ . But it doesn’t just stop there, while we happily shed our silken real life in exchange for the synthetic virtual garb of well connectedness – we heavily pay on various levels, one of the terms being loss of our privacy (1).
With the world constantly plugged in to various devices that enable them to stay “connected”, we are evolving towards a world where a relationship is considered official only when it is updated on Facebook and a news story valid only if it is tweeted about on Twitter! With people constantly trying to exert their presence over various realms of laptops, tablets and mobile phones, we are increasingly exposing ourselves to threats of invasion of privacy. The recent scandals of the phone hacking by a reputed newspaper, the iCloud photo leaks and the concerns over the lobbying of laws requiring phone/internet suppliers to store customer data embody the essence of the problem.
One of the most prized accessory that leaves us the most vulnerable to such types of danger are our app laden ‘smart phones’.The rate at which apps are being developed and released is increasing at an alarming rate with 60 thousand apps being added per month in the Apple app store alone (2)! In fact mobile users are literally glued to their phones spending an average of 2hr 42 mins per day (3). As if the ‘plain’ GPS trackers on our phones weren’t enough, the app developers have had another ‘eureka’ moment where they have introduced apps which can stalk people using their very on phones! I do understand the usefulness of such apps in tracking the whereabouts of your children or family members (with their consent – of course, its a legal necessity, duh!) for purposes of keeping a watchful eye or just merely guiding them when they need directions; what shocks me, however, is the fact that people actually use these apps to stalk their partners!! Apps such as ThaiSpy, Couple tracker, mCouple and mSpy are just a few of the offerings on the market that allow people to check their partners call histories, text messages, Skype histories, and their social media activity (4,5)!
On digging a little deeper into the matter I realised that the creep-apps were just the tip of the iceberg. Not only are partners using them to detect cheating partners, they are also using them to gain evidence. There are increasing accounts of partners trying to snoop on their ‘better halves’ being documented in several divorce cases with these apps supplying the data for strengthening the argument in favour of the stalker (6, 7). While spying without consent is illegal, there are still quite a few grey areas when it comes to spouse related spying – for there is willing sharing of information including passwords which assist misuse. There are additional rules to curb the misuse of such softwares, rules like a person having legal authority over the phone being monitored is one such grey area.
While there are some laws, varying from country to country which deem such stalking illegal, there is no concrete law (there lies our first problem!) – it is worthwhile to note here that the development of such apps is completely legal. Furthermore the app developers wash their hands of the legal responsibility but inserting few rules in the agreement (not to mention they also rob you with their extortionist service subscription prices). This would mean you’d have to be desperate? to get an app to stalk your partner – rather than just being honest with them ( *rows of red flags*). But I digress..
With our futures increasingly relying on technology and the internet, there is an increasing requirement for our legal systems to be constantly on their toes, revisiting and amending laws to accommodate these increasing threats. But we cannot solely rely on a change of laws (which may take eons considering the snail pace) alone. On a personal front, we need to be more aware of the technology we employ and need to educate ourselves on how to minimise our risks. It is true, in the current age of the internet, ‘ignorance is no longer bliss’ and probably curiosity (of the dangers you might be facing) might just save the cat.
Though on a less morbid, lay front, there are people who actually claim that spying actually ‘helped’ their relationships – by increasing trust. In my personal opinion if your relationship is at that point where your partner need to gain trust via a stalking app (*gets the creeps*), I think you definitely should reconsider. But hey, if your partner is flattered by the stalking who am I to judge? Happy stalking 🙂
References (to list a few):
The universes expand,
the sun rays span,
for life to sustain,
You let them be.
For the rivers to flow,
the clouds billow,
when the winds blow,
You let them be.
For the colours of a peacocks plume,
the vivid flowers bloom,
air vibrant with their perfume,
You let them be.
For the world to grow,
happiness to glow,
stop judging others now,
do no let your close minded thoughts sow,
Let your children be.
In response to :
A restaurant that removed your favorite item from the menu, a bad cover of a great song… Write a post about something that should’ve been left untouched, but wasn’t. Why was the original better?
Writing for the NaBloPoMo is like going to the gym ! It’s really difficult to drive yourself to do it, but I guess at the end of the day exercise is good for health! But to be honest its been quite fulfilling so far !! The feeling of people relating to what you write is quite exhilarating – like beating your own personal times! What’s also keeping me amused in the NaBloPoMo gym so far is the fact that I’ve been trying to write on different topics -and its got me churning and spewing out things that I haven’t thought of in a long long time! In this effort of working out, I’ve decided to take it one step further – setting a new challenge for improving my personal best – I wanted to know what you, my audience, think I should write on more – it could be any thing- my old posts, particular topics or genres of writing. Let me know what types of waffles would you like to read !!!
Let the yo-yo games begin!! 😀
“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”
― George Gordon Byron“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.”
― Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays
Durdle Door near Lulworth Cove, UK
There is something about the formlessness and the calm of waters that induce a sense of serenity ! Ahh bliss!
Dear people of the world,
I hope you all are doing well ! I would like this opportunity to remind you of something I think we all (with me leading the procession of primitive bullock – cart ideology ) tend to forget in our lives – “the world”. Ever so often we get tangled in the silken skeins of our lives such that we cannot envisage a mere thought without the relevant ‘me’ in the life-panorama. Our thoughts cease to extend beyond me and whats mine ( my family, my work , my house and my fart!). Everything associated with our fancies gets boxed up as ‘myness’ and the rest discarded in the ‘otherness’ bin. In our quest to be better at everything, we forget the quintessential fact that beneath all this materialistic facade we are, like pearls on a string, strung on the same thread of this earthly life. In our self-centred efforts to advocate narrow-minded narcissistic benefits we fail to realise that we are destroying the beauty of that necklace of life. We have evolved from human beings into a new generation of ‘Gollums’ yearning for their preciouses.
What I would like to illuminate here is that if we were to just stop for a breather from our race and pause to think, we would realise how pointless it really is.We need to understand that despite all our ‘gollum’ characteristics, human beings are social creatures and we cannot live a fulfilled life in the solitary confinements of the jails of our selfishness. We just need to take a moment and contemplate about the next specimen of Homo sapiens as a fellow ‘person’ before we lash out, we would realise that our differences are all merely superficial. When we truly understand, all our preconceived notions will crumple and fall away leading to a better perception of the world rather than just blindly reacting. If we were all to embrace this ruminating philosophy where we are tolerant of each others pseudo-differences, the world would be rid of quite a lot of its banes including inequality, sexism and wars to name a few. Right, enough of this self-less preaching – its time I get back to my precious waffles !!
Forever yo-yoing,
Evolving Ruminations
In response to :
Daily prompt: Literate for a Day
Someone or something you can’t communicate with through writing (a baby, a pet, an object) can understand every single word you write today, for one day only. What do you tell them? (Thanks for the suggestion, Chic Prune!)
You’re asked to recite a poem (or song lyrics) from memory — what’s the first one that comes to mind? Does it have a special meaning, or is there another reason it has stayed, intact, in your mind?
More than what first comes to my mind, the poem ‘Leisure‘ by W.H. Davies is one that is quite often on my mind and is probably one of the most haunting pieces of written work that I’ve ever come across. The simplicity and the beauty with which W.H.Davies describes the bane of being human on several different levels is incredible. Not only does it signify that we are so caught up in in our ‘daily’ lives that we miss out on the beauties of life but we are also too full of ourselves that we often forget that there exists a world around us. We are but just a mere speck in the cosmos !
The poem goes as follows:
“LEISURE”
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.No time to turn at Beauty’s glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.By Wm. Henry Davies.
London Skyline
Swan Lake
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