What is this fascination with looking into the inner workings of people’s private lives that has arisen in the social media age?
The private belongs to the past; privacy no longer has primacy, is no longer held in security; our privacy is now the plaything of private companies, made publicly available for all the world to see. It is their possession, not ours; their prerogative, their privilege, that we would proliferate so promiscuously our inner thoughts, our political views, our household woes, workings and wonders; that we would promulgate our preferences, perks and piquancies.
Now I expect my fellow man to be ready to bare his soul to me, or his morning routine, or his book collection, or his family holiday destination and plans. How unusual that anyone should be an enigma, unreadable to me except through long, deep, in-person conversation, interaction and relationship. Surely it should all be codified, collected and paraded on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram.
But what is this fascination? Nothing but a manipulation of our desire to draw comparisons, a tugging at core neural networks in our brains to perceive new possibilities where old patterns might have been perfectly acceptable for us; a whole world of potentiality opened up, an impossibly vast vista of variation, a voyeuristic voyage to indulge the senses, inflame the heart, and incense the mind that knows not how to choose whether to adopt this or that latest-new-habit, this or that trendy diet, this or that hobby, this or that or the other online subculture’s ways (and join their groups, forums and threads).
Privacy – and with it, depth, true friendship, and confidentiality – has gone down the pan.
Ben David Trigg 