Importance of Privacy Assignment
For this Extension Assignment, you will research the importance of privacy as it relates to mental health.
Assignment Information
The application area for this assignment is psychology. However, anyone with an interest in this assignment is welcome to choose it, regardless of major.
Prerequisites
- You should be able to utilize Internet search engines and the CCU Library to find articles related to the psychological effects of surveillance.
- You should be able to review applicable literature, some of which will be found in psychological journals and related publications.
- You should be able to understand, categorize, and evaluate psychological and behavioral concepts found in the above literature.
- You should be able to create a logically organized presentation using Microsoft PowerPoint or LibreOffice Impress.
- You should be able to record a video presentation by narrating slides while recording a screencast.
- You should be able to edit the recorded video, transcode it to MP4 or WEBM format, and upload the result to Moodle.
Background
Jourard (1966) identified some important psychological aspects of privacy, including the need to be able to escape from societal pressures to conform to social norms. This paper was published 3 years before the ARPANET was first created in 1969. ARPANET gave way to the NSFNET in the late 1980s, and NSFNET was commercialized into the Internet in the early 1990s. Since that time, the Internet has become a major part of daily life for many people.
Today, we have so many different devices and services collecting data and keeping us connected to society during most waking (and some sleeping) hours. Social media and instant messaging systems allow us to stay connected to one another constantly. At the same time, such services are recording everything we say and building comprehensive profiles of our behaviors. Similarly, our phones, televisions, and other connected devices are monitoring us and sending data back to the companies that built them.
One attitude that some folks have taken in this modern age of surveillance is to stop caring about data collection. A familiar refrain is that “I have nothing to hide, so why should I care if someone can see my data?”. Some intelligence and law enforcement services go so far as to label people potential terrorists or criminals if they seek to protect their own digital privacy (Rashid, 2014).
For this Extension Assignment, the question you will ponder is this: is privacy important for a person’s mental health? An equivalent way to consider this question is to consider whether or not individuals would be adversely affected if we did away with all privacy. Would people be OK if everything they said and did was recorded and stored permanently in a database that random other people could query at any time?
References
Jourard, S. M. (1966). Some Psychological Aspects of Privacy. Law and Contemporary Problems, 31(2), 307. PDF Available from Duke University
Rashid, F. Y. (2014, July 4). The NSA Thinks You Are an Extremist If You Care About Privacy. PCMag. Available Online
Requirements
- Conduct online research related to privacy and mental health. Use both search engines and the search and digital journal tools from the CCU Library. Locate at least 8 sources. At least 4 of your sources must be peer-reviewed articles appearing in psychology journals from any branch of psychology (abnormal, behavioral, developmental, social, etc.). You MAY use the Jourard article (above) as a source, but note that it was published in a law journal and therefore doesn’t count as one of the 4 psychology journal articles. In this course, it is acceptable to use Wikipedia entries for up to 2 of the non-psychology journal citations.
- Prepare an original presentation about the importance of privacy for mental health. This presentation should use Microsoft PowerPoint or LibreOffice Impress slides as visual aids.
- Cite your sources in the presentation using APA format.
- Using a screencasting tool (or your phone, if you have trouble getting anything else to work), record a presentation in your own voice, using your slides as a visual aid. You are NOT required to have a video of yourself in the presentation – the audio is sufficient.
There are no minimum or maximum length requirements for the video. However, the presentation should fully answer the question while remaining concise. A target length of 15-20 minutes would be ideal, but the video can run longer or be a bit shorter if necessary.
You are free to address the question from the perspective of any branch of psychology. Alternatively, you may combine ideas from articles from different branches of the discipline and use a more holistic approach. This assignment is intended to be as open-ended as possible, so that you can explore the problem and formulate your own answer.
Grading
Please review the Importance of Privacy Rubric prior to uploading your video presentation. This rubric explains how this assignment option will be graded and can be used as a checklist to ensure that you have completed all the required parts of the assignment.
