Annotation 2: How Our Notion toward Privacy Vary with Time? (Revised)

      The definition toward the word, privacy changes. In fact, not until late nineteen century did the term “privacy” enter ordinary people’s sight. Back to the Western world during renaissance or China governed by feudal empire, we’ve never heard of any protests against privacy leak. But there is an unchanged doctrine: we love spying on others secret.

       According to a great psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud, it is our nature to peep on others’ life. If we look back on our daily life, we can soon find examples in one man: It is never an offensive way to show our care and intimacy in regards with friends such as inquiring them” What do you have for your lunch?” ” Do you sleep tight last night?” “We all love to know how other mankind makes their living and interact with friends or lovers. This nature is aroused from our childhood, based on our deepest doubt about where we come from” stated firmly in Freud’s Psychoanalysis. Hence, it is much reasonable for us to understand why people took the novel, Dream of the Red Chamber, as the jewel in Chinese literature. For readers, especially in the past, this novel provides a precious way to bypass the fence built by the gap between poor and rich, allowing readers to appreciate the life in wealthy family and the forbidden romance between young couples. It is obvious that even back to the early age, far before the mature era of mass media, we still have managed to utilize every possible means, such as novels and our daily conversation, to satisfy our natural desire to peek at others’ private life.

More recently, the newspaper has served the function for our inborn eager to pry. In the very beginning, newspaper appears merely as a bulletin to share information. There is only several monotony news and comments on the paper. Reading a newspaper back then definitely has nothing to do with thrill and excitement. However, later in mid- nineteen century, smart businessmen started to seek out for a new and promising track to success by taking advantage of our nature. Since then, newspaper comes out from another way. Besides daily news, it also takes scandals of politicians, extramarital affairs of a distinguished actress, or even gossips in neighborhoods into its context. Eventually, this strategy turns out to be a great success. The selling record mushrooms from 432 pieces a day in 1808 to 1582 in 1833. (夢葳, 新浪傳媒. (2012). 解析1690- 2011 美國報業發展史) These gossips and thrillers really play an indispensable role in it.

Even more recently, many new technologies join our daily life, our tangle relation with peeping others remain, but the way to peep changes. Since blog and other social platforms, such as Facebook, are invented in late twenty century, it has opened a brand new era- It is the era for individualism. Instead of receiving information through mainstream media passively, on social networks we can now demonstrate ourselves in public and we enjoy it. By sharing details in our daily life, we act as the movie star in front of the spot light. In that way, we can thus gain responses and interact with our “audience.” It greatly comforts our anxiety to retrieve fame. On the other hand, by reading friends’ latest information, we not only instantly feel the strong intimacy connection in a relationship, but we also get our natural desire satisfied. In fact, in Freud’s Psychoanalysis, he also mentions that we all desperate to acquire peers’ trust, approval and accompany. Today, we can achieve this goal simply by sharing our private life with friends on these social platforms. For us, we not only receive others’ private information, but, we are much more willing to give out ours. Privacy is not a fragile antique which needs to be treated with carefulness, but a tool which can be utilized freely to broaden our social space and make us spiritual contented.

Generally speaking, from evidences above, we can come up with our conclusion: It is inevitable that human love to know more about others’ life, but the way to accomplish varies by the medium we use. Our notion toward privacy also evolves simultaneously. In late nineteen century, it may be unacceptable for a reporter to unveils the complicated relationship an actress holds in his report. But today, we are deliberately to spread our image or video on the web. In the future, the way we treat private information has its tendency to be more aggressive and less restricted. For will we face the world with less obstacle in private information share? It is already not the question for yes- or- no, but for when and how.

Reference:

1.      Bobbie Johnson. (2009). How Exactly is Facebook Making Money? The Guardian Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/technology/blog/2009/sep/16/facebook-money

2.      Mark Sullivan. (2010). How will Facebook Make Money? Pcworld Retrieved from http://www.pcworld.com/article/198815/ssss.html

3.      黃崢. (2008). 窺探隱私是天性. 人民網. Retrieved from http://health.people.com.cn/BIG5/14740/21471/6898544.html

4.      夢葳, 新浪傳媒. (2012). 解析1690- 2011 美國報業發展史 Retrieved from http://news.sina.com.cn/m/2012-02-22/095123972869.shtml