
Master of the house: why we should fight for truly private spaces - kawera
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/dec/04/private-spaces-technology-thoughts
======
n0us
Not being able to find private space in your multi-million dollar open floor
plan modern home is one of those good kind of problems to have. If you want to
live in a home with private space it isn't exactly hard to do. Since when did
twitter prevent you from keeping a diary if you so choose?

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.

~~~
vmateixeira
I think the author means that tweeting keeps you from writing a diary in a way
that it makes you feel that you already wrote about your happiness, problems,
emotions, etc somewhere else. In my opinion there is a misleading feeling of
privacy in social media in general. If you post something online, by keeping
it "private" you may be mislead to think that no one else is going to be able
to read/see it at any point in time. There seems to be no space where you can
currently be alone with yourself anymore.

~~~
TeMPOraL
I'm having trouble with understanding the confusion that leads to the idea of
doing something private, "alone with yourself", on the Web. It's kind of like,
pretty much opposite by definition?

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.

~~~
vmateixeira
Sorry, when I mentioned "alone with yourself" I was referring as in general,
not only on the Web. I agree with you that online and private don't mix. What
I was trying to say is that it is like if you don't have your space anymore.
Unless you turn off your WiFi, put away all your gadgets, there seems to be no
space for your thoughts, for you to think by your own about your day-to-day
problems and find some interesting conclusions and perhaps to establish a
commitment on improving yourself. Wherever you go, sometimes even to the
bathroom, people end up taking their phone. When alone in your bed, phone is
again present. You're always being influenced by what you see, read and
perhaps impulsively making decisions based on that without thinking by
yourself first.

~~~
TeMPOraL
You're making a good point. I've noticed myself that the only moments I do
_real_ thinking nowadays are shower, bed (when trying to fall asleep) and the
rare occasions when I don't feel like reading on public transport. Otherwise,
there's always something else available that's easier and more comfortable
than running with your own thoughts.

~~~
noir_lord
Was on bus yesterday for first time in close to decade, 65℅-70% of users where
sat on their phones the entire way without ever looking up, it was actually
quite fascinating to notice.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yup. Though before that, they'd be listening to their iPods, before that to
their Walkmans, and even before that they'd be reading newspapers.

Isolationism in public transportation is not a new phenomenon.

------
mark_l_watson
Great article +1 to The Guardian which is becoming a favorite source of things
to read.

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.

------
Artoemius
I don't think that's why people don't keep private diaries. I would rather
guess that they have no interesting thoughts.

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.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Maybe it's also about difference of form? I can't for life keep writing a
normal journal for more than a week, but I generate tons of notes about ideas,
all in text files scattered around a synced folder. Is that "journaling" too?

~~~
gglitch
I've found keeping a diary to be more difficult and more rewarding than it
might popularly be thought to be. There are different approaches, from logs of
events to records of thoughts/feelings, with varying levels of detail, and
there are inspiring published diaries of all stripes to take as an example. I
completely agree with the author about the latent connections between
diarizing, privacy, self-awareness, awareness of one's public image, and the
internet era. I think it'd be a great idea if diaries were a standard unit in
secondary lit classwork.

------
vmateixeira
Really nice article imo.

------
everyone
Meh, sorta rambling nonsensical article imo.

