As humans, we have the right to understand. We have the right to understand how we live, what we do and what we rely on. We have the right to understand what we are using and giving before we chose to develop our technology for the sake of simplicity, and prepare for the potential consequences.

I am a student who lives in a privileged family, and I benefit from the advanced developing world of technology. I am given the opportunity to experience and enjoy the simplicity of advanced technology, but I am only a consumer. I have no participation behind the making, organising or understanding of how this technology is being developed, and what I am trading just to endorse myself in it. I spent my early childhood also having free access to a computer with internet, no older than 6. I grew up devoting myself to what the world behind a screen has to offer. As a child I play games, watch videos and surf the web. Through doing so over the years, I am freely giving away my name, my age, my country of residency, my house address and sometimes (with permission) my mum’s credit card. There was once a time where I loved this game called Moshi Monsters, it had a one month membership I wanted, so I had paid my mother the cash and had her pay for it with her credit card details. During that month, I was having a blast, it was fun. A full month passed, and a week after it had been a whole month, I still had the membership. I didn’t question it, this was great, it had obviously made a mistake and I was benefiting from it, I was playing with membership for even longer than what I had paid for. I had outsmarted them. Or so I thought. When my mother got suspicious of my membership not expiring, she investigate. The credit card was still being used, money was still being taken from it. We spent a full 10 minutes trying to shut down and stop the membership. The system had set itself up in a way that required you to go to effort to stop money being taken from you. This happened because I threw myself into that mess without thinking twice, just so I can go further into what fun had to offer me. From doing more situations like this, I am making it easier for the internet to know what I want. I am technically developing as I do this, by going further. By devoting myself more and more to the internet and using platforms and systems that give what I want quickly and efficiently. Wouldn’t that count as becoming better? Then why does it not sound right?

The internet and computers are just one example of technological miracles that people indourse and praise. Whether it is being used for their work, entertainment, or just sheer simplicity reasons. As long as these innovations help us, why would we even consider criticizing or questioning something that helps us? Why should we bother understanding it? It is the mindset behind such questions that is causing us to have our right to understand taken away. This right is not forcefully violated or taken away by some person of intimidation and high power. This right is not something that we cling onto and attempt to protect at all costs, no, this right is being taken away by ourselves.

Whenever someone is losing their right to understand a technological development or new system, it’s because they are choosing to not understand it. Why? Why would someone choose to not understand it? Because it’s easier! It is easier to turn the blind eye and endorse something that comforts or make situations more convenient for yourself. Say you’re a business manager, a business manager who has realised that they are about to miss an extremely important deadline with a transaction that needs to be made. To meet the deadline as quickly as possible, you give your credit card details, name and ID just to make the transaction deadline on time but by turning a blind eye. By not following up and guiding the direction of the information you have just sent away. You just turned a blind eye to where the details that hold your money, class, ethnicity and records have gone to. Who knows what could happen to those details or what will be done with them? Did you even stop to wonder why maybe they needed some of those details? Is it all necessary? In Singapore alone, the most recent official police release of statistics showed that there were 5,796 digital scams in 2018 that were accounted for, with an accounted amount of about 158 million dollars cheated off of people in total. 65% of these scams were petty internet scams such as false e-commercial and ‘Fake love’.

Wong, Cara. “Crime Numbers up with Surge in Online and Phone Scams.” The Straits Times, The Straights Times, 21 Feb. 2019, www.straitstimes.com/singapore/courts-crime/crime-numbers-up-with-surge-in-online-and-phone-scams.

Meaning that the people that were scammed were most likely people that either just didn’t bother to understand what they were about to do to themselves, or simply were in denial and refused to understand it because the bait was too tempting. If you know all the potential consequences and worst case scenarios that would have come out of the situation would you have maybe still been so keen to give so much away so quickly? What if you do, but are prepared and ready to meet the consequences that could happen? The same is to be said about any form of developing.

The human race thrives to develop, but would it hurt to maybe slow down and think it through first? Both when we make or use something. We can still develop, we can still give our credit card details, we can still devote ourselves to the convenience and enjoyment of new technology… But instead thrive in all of this safely. We can do this safely by being prepared and understanding of what happens when we do something as simple as clicking a button.