Privacy, as we know it, is dead.
After nearly a decade of social-networking, Internet users have grown accustomed to informational exhibitionism. Norms are changing, primarily among Generation X, with confidentiality giving way to openness. Anyone using Google, Twitter, Loopt, FriendFeed, Flickr, and other elements of modern digital society are aware their use of said services means giving up some sort of privacy. But surprisingly, millions of people are unconcerned and are willing to make that trade-off every day. Of people with an online profile, nearly 40% have disabled privacy settings, according to a Pew Internet survey released a year ago. That percentage is probably higher today.
“As a social good, I think privacy is greatly overrated because privacy basically means concealment” says conservative federal judge Richard Posner. “People conceal things in order to fool other people about them. They want to appear healthier than they are, smarter, more honest and so forth. That isn’t a defense of snooping as much as a warning of the flip side of privacy–concealing facts that are discreditable, including those that other people have a legitimate reason for knowing.”
At a recent technology conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Internet users don’t care as much about privacy anymore. “People have really gotten comfortable not only sharing more information and different kinds, but more openly and with more people–and that social norm is just something that has evolved over time,” the 25-year old said. Zuckerberg defended the company’s decision in December to push users to reveal more, saying “we decided that these would be the social norms now and we just went for it.” Fifty years ago, Zuckerberg’s philosophy would have been seen as disclosing far too much information. But today, it makes him within the norm by the very standards of his generation.
In some cases, even medical privacy is being selectively discarded. Cancer patients share intimate details on survivor discussion sites. On theKnot.com, theNest.com, and theBump.com, members often tell other community members they’re pregnant before they tell their families, without bothering to conceal their identities. And interestingly, these discussion areas go beyond support networks; they’ve become additions to and substitutes for in-person conversations.
If any of this concerns you, then you likely didn’t grow up with the Internet. It’s difficult to overstate how thoroughly today’s youth (Generation X-hibitionists) have adjusted to living in a world that utterly lacks traditional concepts of privacy.
A 2008 Harris Interactive/CTIA survey of more than 2,000 American teens confirmed that today’s youth is barely worried about privacy. Only 41% were concerned, while 59% were happy to provide personal information to marketers. Compare this to a Harris poll conducted in 1998, the same year Google was founded, that found a remarkable 80% of people were hesitant to shop online because of privacy worries. Fast forward 12 years and we’re bragging on Blippy about what we bought with our Mastercard.
