Thoughts on privacy
I’ve put a lot of thought into the ideas of privacy lately as it seems that our ideas about privacy have changed TREMENDOUSLY in the last 20 years. I think that there is a large difference in the views about privacy in those under 45 or so, and those over. I’ll admit to even being leery about posting this anything personal about myself, and I of course then think to myself that it’s easy enough to find out many things about me with a quick Google search, so what’s the big deal? That being said, I still have some reservations about posting stuff on the Internet.
At some point I think the our society will reach a point where it will be considered strange not to be connected, or always available, and that somehow if you don’t want to be connected/reachable all the time that you’re doing something wrong. It’s already been shown in several studies that people under the age of 25 (at least one study was done on college students) cannot go more than 3 days without their cell phones/crackberries etc.
On one hand I would argue that this breakdown of privacy is good for humanity in that I believe that in order to create societies that enhance our quality of lives we need to surrender some of our privacy. Without getting to know each other and what we each want, it becomes impossible to work towards a greater good for everyone. On the other hand, if we all become so used to tuning out drivel such as “I’m having toast for breakfast”, then we risk ignoring communication that might be important.
I would hope that we would reach some sort of happy medium, where there is a balance between what is kept private, and what is made public.