As a current college student who has been following this uproar over the recent Facebook changes I was very surprised at how quickly so many users reacted. I think your suggestion of panic is appropriate; almost immediately I overheard words like "creepy" and "stalker" being used. What is interesting is many of users of Facebook are aware of just how much data is collected and accept this. The cause for panic was not--in my observations--shock or disbelief that so much information was collected and stored; but how trivial the information and the absolute lack of control. I found myself thinking, "Great, now everyone will know when I go back to fix a typo I just noticed". The concern over privacy seems to have become especially salient in this example because these constant refinements we all make to our public personas are intended to be private: when one checks in the mirror for leftover lunch in their teeth, or pauses for a moment to think over what they are about to say, these acts if they aren't private lose their relevance. Users who change details to their Facebook accounts didn't want everyone to know that they were straightening their shirt so to speak, something intended to be private. I applaud Mark Zuckerberg for his quick and appropriate response; however, this incident reminds us all of the need to think critically about what privacy means and whether something is intended to be private.

Thanks for the input. I think privacy as control is another important way of looking at these issues. Love the analogy of "checking the mirror for leftover lunch."

I think the attention span issue is key. I think in this sound bite world people are often astonished at the tenacity and memory of a data collection apparatus when it is turned on them. In a world where the TV reminds us every 13 minutes that House is on at Tuesday at 8 and friend's birthdays go forgotten, it becomes almost as hard to grasp the concept of a persistent surveillance as it is to understand astronomical distances or geologic time.