The Value of Privacy and Personal Space

I am almost always asked to connect with somebody on Facebook, MySpace or any one of the multitude of similar networking tools that are available today. I am on Linkedin which I activated recently so that I am not classified as anti-technology! And of course I have been blogging at Blogger for some time now and I am quite adept at using email to stay connected

I have nothing against Facebook or MySpace. In fact I may end up being on them too. I think they are nice. I am sure they are cool stuff to play with and they are the product of our generation’s quantum leap in IT and connectivity. We also, it seems to me, have developed a taste for 24/7 culture. We want to be constantly updated on what’s happening around us. 24 hour news channel was a boon for many until they realized that not only do they want to know what is happening in other parts of the world, they also want to know what their closest friends and family members are doing at any given point of time. All at finger-tip speed of course. It is not enough to know the latest breaking news in Nicaragua but also what our dear friend Nigel is doing with his date at the fancy Italian restaurant that they are at. So, we have Twitter and such that are able to keep us in the loop about the most trivial adventures, private thoughts and goings on in other people’s lives. Only recently I read a British Archbishop lamenting how this technology has enabled us to have a multitude of ‘intimate’ friends without the quality often associated with what is termed as ‘friendship’. I guess, that's ok. After all what is wrong to have many friends and having as many ‘network’ as you can.

However, the reason why I am not too eager with Facebook and Myspace and the like is because I am enjoying what will one day become a scarce and precious commodity – my privacy and personal space. Isn’t it strange that, with technology our lives have become everybody’s lives. We want to (and able to) know every minute detail of one’s life style and way of thinking. Harmless? Maybe, maybe not.

Maybe it’s just my personality quirk that I treasure my personal space. It allows me to reflect and it gives me a buffer against the relentless attack on me by forces that are constantly trying to mould my thinking, influence me, decide for me, prying open my life telling me what I should wear, eat and believe. When I list my favorite books on my blog, I do it very consciously knowing that such a ‘simple’ act is actually not that simple after all. The books that I read give you an opportunity to peak into who I am. The places I go to for my vacation gives you a glimpse of me. What I talk about on these sites and how I respond to your comments will tell something of me to you. I leave digital footprints that leads you into me and I may have done that unwittingly. When I update you (say for example through my Linkedin) on my latest projects, I am allowing you to know about me just a little bit more. I have 24 hours in a day which used to be divided into public time (work, family, interest, etc) and personal time. But today, our entire 24 hour is a public life. As we are sleeping, somebody from some where in the world is reading about us or leaving a message commenting on how beautiful the pictures we posted are or how much he or she empathizes with our recent break-up. So, like a 24/7 news channel, our lives are being broadcasted and narrowcasted all the time!

But more sinister (at least to me) is the fact that we end up with 2 lives. One of the physical reality and another of the virtual reality. We mesh these two and we have a 24/7 life. This is not my cup of tea. There are different rules for these realities and it is so easy to confuse one with another. I personally feel that I am not equipped to manage these two realities with equal efficiency. The virtual world will always be a mere tool for me. Nothing more.


My feeling is that we should not allow ourselves to become like the mass produced consumer products that are being churned out in the factories of the world. We should not become as was said, a meaningless generality but rather a meaningful specific. To do that we have to be able to Reflect and we must have a reasonable amount of Personal Space to do so. This personal space could either be literally in the physical world or at least in our mind and thinking. We need to have the skills, abilities and time to integrate the vast amounts of information and data we receive in a day. I read somewhere that a single morning’s newspaper today has more information than our grandparents have acquired in their entire lifetime! I wouldn’t go so far to take this literally but I get the point. A few days ago, as I was interacting with a speaker from the US, he mentioned something interesting in a different context but is related to what I am trying to say here. He said that ‘feedback is data and data is information that you can use to make improvements’. Interesting. As far as I know feedback does not turn into data and data does not metamorphosis into information automatically. That is as far fetched as saying that the mere act of reading a book makes one knowledgeable. Something needs to happen in the interim and that is the process of Reflection and Integration of ideas and thoughts and insights. For me that can’t happen without my personal space and time.

I will hold on to this little space of privacy and personal time that I have. I am not sure for how long but I am going to enjoy it as long as it lasts.