Expectations of Privacy

The tech age brings so much of our private lives to the masses it is scary. I honestly don't know how anyone who even owns a cell phone can have any expectation of privacy. We hear so many people complaining about the government's invasion into their privacy and all the hacking scandals. Can anyone expect to not be hacked at least once in their lifetime? I guess so, if they only make purchases in person. But even then, if they pay in anything other than cash their information is stored. Again leading to the possibility of being inadvertently released.

It is not just the financial aspect of technology. Consider all the social websites - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, LinkedIn, to name a few. You participate in just one of these social websites and your information is immediately available to countless people around the globe. Yet people still expect some modicum of privacy when posting photos of their scantily clad bodies in seductive poses or gloating about how they defaced property because an acquaintance ticked them off.

I write all of this even as I partake of the technology juice. While I would like to think I have some bit of privacy when using https: websites, I know there is a risk. And in participating, I accept that risk. It is the social websites where the risk is, I believe, even greater. Friendships and marriages can be broken with a single entry.

Blogging and posting short entries on social websites is a convenient outlet. It feels good to vent, share one's worries, rejoice or pout online because others read and comment. And you are connected. Not face to face, but keyboard to keyboard. And it is interesting how different the posts of a teen or twenty-something are compared to someone who grew up in the pre-PC (that's Personal Computer, not Politically Correct) era.

Twenty-somethings and younger are growing up fully loaded with technology. Half the children in my son's elementary school have their own smart phones! And many public schools are changing their school supply lists to include laptops or minis. So sharing what they ate today, how boring Mr. Surinsky is in math and the latest photo of 'sexy me' puckering up for the camera is nothing.

But for those of us who spent our childhoods and possibly the better part our young adulthoods with rotary phones, the occasional TV and a total ignorance that computers even existed are a bit more discerning when, and if, we choose to participate in electronic socializing. There is something to be said about venting in person or over the (land-line) phone to a close friend. No audit trail. No lingering texts, emails, posts, voicemails, recordings...no nothing. We learned that burning a bridge in person is far easier to rebuild as memories fade and there are few to no reminders of the original slights.

There are times I would like to share the particulars of why I'm having a bad day in a social post. But the filter from days gone by kicks in and my thoughts go to who may read it and misunderstand it or who may become overy concerned when all I'm doing is venting after the situation has been resolved. Then I go to read a young person's post and aahhh! TMI! TMI! (Too Much Information)

It's interesting, this built-in filter of ours. It seems to be fading from our DNA as technology lends itself to sharing more to a broader audience.