Paid in Full

            Individual action, dedication and compassion are needed in everyday life to help maintain stability in society, but at the end of the day, what can be done to stabilize an individual’s personal life?  Privacy is a special aspect of society and culture that truly indentifies what is personal and is something that is internal and specific to the person who wants it.  According to an online article by Zizi Papacharissi, privacy is the human right “to be left alone.”

            The private sphere talks about privacy in a way that is relative to the structure of society.  It is one of the four spheres needed to make society function and without it the state, market and public spheres can not carry out their proper duties.  The privacy of individuals is needed so that the other spheres have a place to influence and infiltrate in order to make their spheres seem stronger and/or more superior.   Specifically, the state sphere is strong because it affects how individuals in the private sphere live their lives: either as part of the state or in a separate but civil manner, from the state.  

This contrast between what privacy means to different social groups is seen centuries ago, during the time of the ancient Romans.  Privacy was more of a stratified system between social classes.  Those who could afford privacy purchased it without a problem.  These individuals were wealthier and higher up in hierarchy than most citizens.  With their access to privacy, they had the ability to separate their social and personal lives.  They were able to go to work each day outside of their homes and converse with the outside world away from their personal space.  This ability to come in and out of the different spheres of life, leaving their personal lives in the private sphere, defined what advantages came from living a wealthier lifestyle.  However, to the other citizens, who were mostly poor and worked for the individuals in the upper class, privacy was too expensive of a commodity to obtain.   

According to Mats G. Hansson, the public, state and market spheres all interfered with lives of individuals in the private sphere, because social, work and personal life were constantly being combined.  Businesses were being run out of people’s homes, causing an invasion of family life and personal space by the public.  Back then, if individuals or families were not constantly interacting with citizens in the public and market spheres, then they did not get paid.  Part of maintaining a family-owned business was finding ways in which to integrate the wants and needs of society with one’s own goals. 

Fast forward to 2011, this idea of “privacy as a commodity” is a little less common.  The private sphere is now so easily accessible to everyone because of the development of new technologies, such as Web 2.0, all around the world.  Now, something that was once available to only the upper class can now be shared by society as a whole.  For instance, now the state sphere and private sphere can act alone.  Yes, individuals still have to follow rules and regulations, but they can do so from a distance. Nowadays, the key to operating within the private sphere is knowing what and what not to share with others.  Social groups now have more control of their private lives and are able to control what they expose to society. Thankfully, the Internet is not a socially stratified environment and individuals are able to regulate what people know about them and what information they want others to know, regardless of social class.  For instance, social media sites like Facebook and MySpace are perfect examples of this.  A person who follows someone or becomes someone’s “friend” is only exposed to the information of the individual that they are following or “friending.”  In the past, this would not have been possible because privacy was not available to everyone. 

Web 2.0 not only allows the private sphere to be independent of the state, market and public spheres, but individuals can now watch these spheres more closely without interfering with these spheres’ daily routines.  The improvement of the Internet has made public records, communication, news and entertainment media available to all citizens in society.  Citizens of lower social statuses know just as much about what is happening in society, as do citizens in the upper classes.

On a more social level, Web 2.0 has greatly influenced how individuals interact with each other.  As mentioned before, the Internet knows no social class and brings everyone in the private sphere together.  One would think that they are now part of the public sphere because everyone shares and interacts with one another, but they are still in the private sphere because the things that they want to share about themselves are being controlled and managed. 

To define privacy as the “right to be left alone,” is a bit limiting because of the transformation of privacy over time.   In the past, those who were not provided with the same benefits of the private sphere as were others, longed for their own personal space and their right to separate private life from social and business life.  However, with the developments and technological advancements of Web 2.O, the private sphere has taken on a whole new position in society.  The modern definition of privacy has become: the right to control what the world knows and thinks about an individual.   Privacy is no longer something to be wished for, because everyone has it.  Now the issue becomes how to maintain and regulate it against social, political and public pressures. 

Hansson, Mats G. "The Private Sphere from a Historical and Cultural Perspective." The Private Sphere: An Emotional Territory and Its Agent. Springer. 1-19. Print.

Papacharissi, Zizi. "Privacy as a Luxury Commodity." First Monday 15.8 (2010). First Monday. 2 Aug. 2010. Web. 6 Oct. 2011. <http://firstmonday.org/htbin/cgiwrap/bin/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3075/2581>.