Americans give up on internet privacy. That was a headline today. There are a bunch of articles today on this because the Pew people have done a survey on American attitudes toward privacy and security a year and a half after the NSA snooping became known. The articles, including one in the q-o-NYT make the same point: Americans are just resigned that this is how life is now in the digital age. It's too much of a hassle to double and triple encrypt or to use services that do. Especially to switch when you've had aol or gmail for so long. The internet is all about, has always been all about, "connectedness," right? In the early days, "Are you connected?" was almost like "What's your sign?" in a previous generation, a question to see how modern or up to date or "with it" you were. To be not connected in those days was uncool.
A guy was quoted in a couple of the articles I read referring to this connectedness with another term that better and instantly conveyed to me the issue here, the term he used was "stickiness." There is a stickiness, a drag, to email, Facebook, online shopping, that inhibits movement to more secure ways of communicating, of living really, in the digital age. The "path of least resistance" is definitely to remain stuck to these sticky surfaces.
Giving up has never been part of the American soul. So many Chinese have told me that having a "slavish" mentality is part of the soul of China. I believe it is. Giving up is having a slavish mentality. It fits with what I think is the soul of China, survival. But Americans have never had a slavish mentality, survival is not the soul of America, the pursuit of happiness is (imo). The soul is a mutable thing, however. It does seem to me that giving up is now a part of the American soul. That is a change. Not happy about that.