Interview Summary: The Revolution Will be Digitized

For the interview exercise, I conducted 13 interviews of people with different demographics to understand how they feel about data privacy and surveillance. This exercise was particularly interesting as it ranged in answers, providing an interesting insight into how people think about my manifesto's topic. The questions that I uniformly asked everyone is, how do they feel about private companies holding information about them? Would they wipe out all their information from the world if they could at a snap of a finger? Here are some notable answers:

Age: 25

Nationality: Germany

I do not really mind giving out my information like my name and age. But it is still hesitating to give out my credit card details or home address when I buy something online. Probably not, I would not like to disappear, it is helpful to have technology in some manner. I am pretty dependent at this point. 

Age: 30

vs rurNationality: Kentucky

I am not very sure about that question. I believe giving out any information is at a cost. People are not careful enough nowadays. I am not that much on social media so yeah, I am already disappearing over time. 

Age: 22

Nationality: Mumbai, India

I am personally okay with sharing information but I also know it is not the safest option. I still have not had a bad experience but its not too far that I will have one. I would like to disappear and reappear when I would prefer.

Age: 26

Nationality: Delhi, India

Sometimes I am, sometimes I am not. Like I wonder why they even need some information from me, so unnecessary. Yeah, I think I would probably wipe of some amount of my digital trace. 

Age: 17

Nationality: San Diego

It is conflicting because I like to have services but I also do not want to give a lot of my information away. I think somewhere I need to find a middle ground with companies that I trust/ loyal to. Yeah I would totally disappear already! everything is overwhelming me right now.

Age: 24

Nationality: Wisconsin

I am not a fan of social media. I do not like people knowing where I am or who I am meeting or what even what my parent's name is. It is rather intruding. Yeah, I would like to take back all my information from out there and just lock it in my bedroom with me.

I think what I realized from these interviews is that people wanted some kind of a middle ground where they could access technology as well as use its convenience. The patterns of urban vs rural perspective is very interesting and so is the age. People before and after their early-middle 20's are more paranoid about data privacy than the rest.