Thursday, June 13, 2013

Privacy vs. Anonymity

Ronald Brownstein tells his readers at National Journal that, as a result of the NSA scandal, they now know they've lost their privacy. He mentions them being "concerned" about this identity invasion ... and yet I wonder.

Isn't the whole notion of "social media" to put information about oneself "out there"  in a place where nearly anybody can access it? Facebook, Twitter, and the many others are places where we hang our dirty (and clean) linen out for all to see.

The overwhelming evidence suggests many of us fear we won't be known, won't have our lives on display, in short, will have unwanted privacy. Anonymity seems to be the greater fear than loss of privacy.

Yes, COTTonLINE is another example of this phenomenon. Here it is a lecturer missing the sometimes-captive audiences to which he opined on a variety of subjects for several decades.

Blog posts are mostly lecturettes, sometimes lectures. The wonderful thing about a blog is that whereas I get to pick the subject matter; you get to choose whether to read a particular entry. At least theoretically, everybody should end up happy.