Master of the house: why we should fight for truly private spaces
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I do agree with the author that private space is important though. It's nice have time to reflect without the worry of interruption or judgement. In these "Open offices" it can be an actual problem, I seem to be the only person I know who would be fine with just a cubicle.
I mean, being private on-line is like setting water on fire. Yes, you can do it, but you won't be able to unless you know some pretty specialized stuff, you'll most likely hurt yourself badly if you don't have the training, and there's zero point in lighting up a lake when going sailing on holiday!
If you want to be alone with yourself, use a text editor. A native application.
Or paper.
Isolationism in public transportation is not a new phenomenon.
I think that the article isn't saying we've lost the ability to choose privacy. It's saying that we've created a world where there's incentives to give up privacy, and very little consideration of what that choice means: sometimes we don't even comprehend that we're making that choice. Your own comment is an example:
> I do agree with the author that private space is important though. It's nice have time to reflect without the worry of interruption or judgement. In these "Open offices" it can be an actual problem, I seem to be the only person I know who would be fine with just a cubicle.
I don't see a cubicle as being private at all. It doesn't prevent people from interrupting or judging me, it only allows me a little respite from distraction, and even that it does poorly. Contrast this with the concept of a study, a room that houses rarely have any more, but in which much of the work of the world has been done.
Your very example of a "private" space demonstrates the ease with which one can give up privacy without even considering the choice.
Good point at the end about privacy not really being about hiding dark secrets. Privacy is a psychological benefit. I argue that privacy is a basic human right.
Re: writing diaries: I sort of do this, but in the cloud. I write a ton of stuff for just myself in the form of organized notes. For things that should not be public, like research on medical problems, I like to keep notes in SpiderOak (encrypted cloud storage). For other things that are for myself but not sensitive tools like OneNote and Keep are fine.
Technology actually made it easier to keep a diary that's truly private (I use a simple rar archive with a password). When I was a teenager without a PC, I had a paper diary, which always made me worry about my parents finding it.