The other day in class we continued the discussion about invading the privacy of the home. In the past, the home, or the private sphere held a certain level of privacy. If one were to make a home video, it would probably not be seen by more than family and close friends of the family. There was no medium that allowed for mass viewing of such content, and therefore, the construction of family remained in the household.
Since the creation of the Internet however, there has been a drastic change from private to public spheres and society has witnessed a violation of the sanctity of the home. There is little concern for this privacy that once controlled what was shown to the public. Now all we can do is sit back and watch as our lives get shown to the world. But society isn’t the only one at fault here. We, as individuals, must take some of the blame. Why? Because we have chosen to make our lives public! Sure you may think, well that’s what we’ve always known, and that may be true, but none the less, we still have the choice on whether or not we want our lives to be seen by the rest of the world. You’re probably thinking, no that doesn’t apply to me, I don’t operate in the public sphere. But the truth is, you do. Ever uploaded a video to youtube, or even Facebook? Ever put pictures up on Facebook? Ever put your private details such as location, email, phone number etc on a social networking site or somewhere on the Internet that others can see it? We’re all of guilty of it.
What’s interesting to note is that some take the transition into the public sphere that one step further and “violate the sanctity of the home” as Prof Strangelove explained in class. But how did we get to this stage? Well, over time, society has placed less and less focus on the need to distinguish private and public spheres. Consequently, devices such as video cameras have moved from the hand of the parent who records memories, to the hand of the an average consumer, either adult or child. Therefore what is considered normal and acceptable in the household, is know opened to the public for them to decide. The idea that “what goes on in the home, stays in the home” is no longer a reality.
Consider this video below.
This poor kid (David) is in the car after a trip to the dentist and has his reaction to the anaesthetic all over Youtube. This video got more than 51 million views. That’s a pretty big increase from the possible 20 to 30 people max that would have seen it 15 years ago! But why do we broadcast our lives in the public sphere? There’s a number of reasons, but the most popular are that:
a) people appreciate validation
b) people want attention
c) people have the desire to share and communication in the online community.
As a result, we get examples like the brother who has titled his sister the “butt rape girl” all because he wanted to develop his sense of self and get attention. I guess he was successful in that case because he’s received over 8 million views on one video.
There are a number of problems with broadcasting our lives in the online community, foremost that it is affecting our individual construction of identity, opening ourselves or those around us up for negative criticism and it is destroying the privacy that once existed in the home. I guess its only a matter of time until people begin to change themselves because of a fear that they will be judged by society.
