Why stay private? What does privacy mean?
Other than the fact that a few microblog users may have a vague idea who I am physically, no one here knows me. Little that I say here (or in several other online spaces) can come back to me in the physical world. Similarly, I play a multi-user RPG daily. Those people do not know me, either. However, those people get a side of me that many people in the real world do not. I can be boisterous and silly, and that is expected of that profile. It is a part of who I am, but it is contextually inappropriate for (most of) my coworkers in my school building. Keeping that profile different from my aforementioned Instagram handle all about vinyl records is important. The people on Instagram do not care about my shenanigans on a videogame. They (barely) care about what picture of a record I post. Similarly, my wife does not care about either of those things (and actively dislikes my massive record collection. It is a burden of both space and money). I have compartmentalized my life. I think, in today’s world, this is important. I care deeply about all three topics mentioned: the game, the records, and (most importantly) my wife. However, they are like the north end of three different magnets; they do not connect. I have game friends who like records, I have record friends who like games, and my wife has records amidst my collection, but they remain separate in my life. What does this have to do with privacy? I don’t know precisely, but I think my personal example is an example of how the world has multiple facets. The way we interact with different outlets varies. I would not want my boss to read the nonsense I share with my online friends in a game. Likewise, I don’t think she would enjoy (at all) most of the music I post. However, we are friends on Facebook, so when she sees me online, it’s mostly silly posts or pictures of my (adorable) children. That personal side of me is mostly private from my record friends or gamer friends. Privacy serves as a way to compartmentalize your life in a meaningful way to you. I could easily say the same things from my gamer profile in real life or on Facebook or Twitter, but without the context or the circumstance it would go unnoticed or (at worst? best?) get me unfollowed by my boss and grandmother. Who am I kidding? She can’t go without seeing her great-grandbabies. I only fully embraced the compartmentalization afforded to me in the past couple of years. I spent countless hours debating the value of people’s lives with folks I used to (some still do) care a lot for. Societal sways and shifts and currents lead us to a point where I had to stop arguing, and frankly, voicing my opinion in favor of human lives online because it was “controversial.” I did my best to educate or (at the very least) provide my perspective, before I could no longer take the weight of being a “social justice warrior” online. I will always hold (and share if you ask) my opinions and takes on the world (and the U.S. specifically), but it’s more of an in person, one-on-one situation than it is a feed of comments on Facebook. (They’re still out there, but I’m not going to continue that road. It was so tiring). Privacy allows us to the affordance of different faces for different places. It allows us the outlet to be ourselves (whether the same or different for any given place). That is important in today’s world. It also has the potential to be dangerous (think: extremists), but I believe the people who would use that concept for harm would intend to cause harm without it anyway. It’s almost therapy to have an outlet for each side of my personal interests. You would not know I collected records (specifically punk rock) unless you saw my record collection or asked specifically about my music tastes. You would not know I played an RPG unless the topic came up. Much like you would not know I taught elementary school unless it was relevant to the conversation. There’s no need to intermingle your worlds unless the overlap is comforting, obvious, or needed.
