What is it about human nature that makes us curious about the lives of others?
It feels like these days curiosity has turned into a borderline obsession as it seems we all want to know what others are doing every minute of the day.
Afterall, there is no shortage of ways to get information. We have Tweets, Facebook status updates, texts, emails, IMs, Skype calls, and cell phone calls, plus YouTube videos and reality TV.
No one has to covertly spy on their neighbors anymore, we can be nosy from a considerable distance. In fact we can know all about someone and never have met them.
When I was growing up, I was told by my parents to keep the doors closed and locked and the blinds closed, especially at night.
Back in those days, before the Internet or reality TV, the biggest threat to privacy were prying neighbors and Peeping Toms.
Old school voyeurism consisted of listening in on people’s phone conversations either through accidental cross-talk on the lines, through a police scanner, or plain old eavesdropping. Today, I can hear any one’s phone conversation, by simply going to a public place. There is no shortage of people talking (usually rather loudly) on their cell phones in public.
I can flip on the TV or go to YouTube and watch bits and pieces of other people’s lives, people I don’t know, have never met and probably never will.
What I am wondering is, where is privacy going to go from here?
It seems the line between public and private is blurred more every day due to technology. More than anything, privacy is a luxury item in today’s society.
Amanda Bretz 