ABSTRACT
Young people are avid users of digital technologies and have generally accepted these, along with social media, as integral to their daily lives. This acceptance, however, does not mean they are blind or indifferent to the ethical and political challenges of a digitally networked world. Chapter 4 situates the micropolitics of youths’ understandings and concerns about privacy and surveillance alongside the macro-political processes that have enabled state and corporate interests to colonize cyberspace. Participants from Canada, the UK, and Australia often took measures to guard their privacy and restrict access to their personal information, but most held the belief that total resistance was futile in an age where digital technologies have become a way of life. More often than not their concerns about personal privacy were superseded by anxieties over the need to maintain their online profiles as well as the pressure to keep up with peers. Theoretical considerations about the coupling of informational technologies with a mutated form of capitalism provide insights for understanding the dilemmas young people face when they weigh the importance of their personal privacy and civil liberties against the benefits promised by digital technology use and social media participation.
