All of my Information is on the Internet

As I finished my differential equations homework, I looked around at the empty hallway where I had been studying.  I saw some trash bins, lovely unpainted red brick walls, numerous doors, covered in name tags and flyers, behind which lay rooms of students either sleeping or wide eyed sitting behind humming computer monitors trying to finish their most pressing homework assignments.  If someone were to walk by me they would see a tired girl with headphones in sitting on the floor, laptop on and in use, phone charging from the laptop, and a computer charger plugged into the wall, acting as a life support to everything involved in the system.  It's off-putting to think that if the power were to go out, I would be pretty much screwed out of finishing my homework. I would obviously unplug my phone and put everything on "powersaving mode", using only the essentials, and I'd be fine, but still, I looked around and I felt like the scene in Fahrenheit 451 where the narrator describes the earphone crawling back into his wife's ear. She could barely be separated from her show for a moment to speak to her husband or to sleep or to do anything!

I have felt this sense of over-connectedness before, but upon buying a smartphone this feeling intensified.  I have a minicomputer in my pocket at all times. I can always be reached, (no murder mystery will ever be the same!) and if the tragedy of a dead cell phone occurs people get frustrated when their outreach is denied an immediate response.  I get work done less efficiently and it is normally of lesser quality.  I am more distracted during class.  I have begun to leave my phone in my room for most of the day because I don't read as often and I feel as though I am getting less out of my day; I am less satisfied with what I have accomplished, because I normally accomplish less! Additionally, I have a lot of information stored on that device. If it were to be permanently broken, I would have to do a lot of back tracking. Additionally, after watching The Frontline documentary "United States of Secrets", the amount of personal information I have online became even more concerning. 

As we have been discussing in class the fact that I am not doing anything wrong online is irrelevant. By seeing everything that I do online, one could obtain information concerning almost everything about me. One could find my full name, nicknames, home address, current address, mailing address, my highschool, my university, the names of all of my siblings and other family members, as well as close friends, my interests, my highschool and college GPA, my affiliation with Greek life, etc. The list is endless. One could  plot most of my life story solely by being my friend on Facebook! This information will probably not be used against me in anyway because I really doubt that the government is concerned with 19 year old lacrosse players, however if I were to become very politically active anything could be used against me.  Especially considering the recent media hype about those who were associated with Tea Party movements were much more frequently audited and those attempting to set up non-profit organizations associated with conservative movements were targeted and sent through massive amounts of bureaucracy and red tape before being able to finally establish themselves.  I am starting to fear that all of the distopian novels which I have read throughout my life are about to come true.  Big government conducting internal surveillance and weeding out the dissenters.  Although it is not at the level of "elimination of 'dangerous' personnel" there has been far too much breech of in house spying. Prism was supposed to target terrorism not innocent persons in a conservative movement or a guy with a blow torch.  But how do the people take back control while allowing the government to maintain important information flow into the NSA?