THE INDEPENDENT

The emperor’s new clothes

“Just because we’re told something countless times doesn’t make it true.” So The Independent goes on to “debunk 50 received wisdoms of modern Britain”. An interesting, witty read and a peek from the other side of myths we create for convenience. A few examples. Common knowledge: “Damien Hirst is a brilliant artist.” Common sense: A review of his latest paintings declared them dreadful. And “Twitter is cool”, so long as the depth you are worth of is a mere 140 characters. Also George Clooney is a natural good-looker (wrong, they tell us); don’t eat before you swim (food is the fuel that’ll keep strokes strong); religion is the cause of all wars (oil, anyone?); Michael Jackson was the king of pops (“from 1992 onwards, Jackson would manage to hit the top of the charts only once more until his death”); the Internet makes life more efficient (not when we rush to find our books for the plumber and phone numbers).

LE MONDE

Watching me watching you

We fret too much about formal surveillance in the form of CCTV cameras, and street cameras, and often tend to forget how much we voluntary indulge in a more complex personal surveillance, triggered off by social networking sites such as Facebook. This new form of voyeurism, “rooted in an appetite for peer-to-peer surveillance” for security reasons or “just for fun” seems to be becoming common. Author Miyase Christensen says a “generation welcomed into the world by fathers holding digital video recorders might not question so much why others should have access to personal details”. The author says Facebook, though seemingly low-key on advertising, tracks user behaviour, “making note of which fan sites are visited or how long is spent on a shopping site.” However, the author does not suggest doing away with these social networking sites as an option. “...what matters now is not us being watched, but the information we leak,” the article concludes.

... contd.