by Ascen Arriazu

Created on: July 18, 2008   Last Updated: June 13, 2009

How can we keep our personal information off the Internet?

Very simple: we can't! It is totally impossible!

Nowadays even the most remote places have access to Internet, the only way of being part of todays' history. We need to be connected as much as we need to feed our body for survival.

I heard of a friend who was working in Sahara, and I heard of him through an e-mail message. "I apologise for not writing as often as I would like to," he said, "but I find it hard to get connected sometimes." And while I was reading that my eyebrows went up to the ceiling, I found it incredible that he could connect over there at all!

But that's the reality of the twenty-first century: we are all one and it is as easy to get known as it is to get in touch with old flames or friends, no matter the distance.

All this has its price though!: You write your name on Google or Yahoo and you will have hundreds of pages talking about you. It doesn't matter whether you are or not a writer or whether you are or are not a very careful person and try always to avoid online games, quizzes or surveys. Your name will still get its way to the screen.

I am Spanish but I have lived abroad for several years now. It is for that reason that I don't only follow everything that happens in my tiny birth town through the local online paper, but I can also keep informed about the trafic offences my ex-neighbours commit, I even discovered that one of my ex-boyfriends had been condemned for stealing bricks from a small nearby building site, what a shame! and how much fun I had reading it! only if he knew!

At the same time, of course, I am also in the same position myself: people will know where I work because my name comes up in my workplace page, anybody can check my whereabouts because of the clues I give in my blog, and I'm lucky to be against credit cards or Internet accounts because those are, in my opinion, an open door for robbers.

We must then not be surprised that nowadays, some of the most dangerous criminals are identity thieves. But I cannot help but wondering why we all have this need of protagonism, this wish of being known!

Maybe we are just mere human beings, flesh and bone that will be consumed by the soil the moment we close our eyes for the last time. Unlike ourselves, our pass and memories will remain forever alive through Internet; we will become inmortals through it, so... what's the need to keep our identity secret? At the end of the day we are all trying to acquire a celebrity status that reasure our weak personalities.

I wonder what my grantparents would think of all this madness if they could see it.

Learn more about this author, Ascen Arriazu.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.