Living life in public is the new default many of us have been experimenting with in recent years. It’s amazing how readily we have adapted to sharing our daily activities, thoughts and knowledge via social media. The consequences of this voluntary act of sharing and its impact on our privacy, is causing us to adjust our norms and our preparedness to be less private than we may once have been. Yet as danah boyd illustrated through her research of teenagers in – It’s complicated: the social lives of networked teens, young people are surprisingly selective as to what they make public.

We are living in the age of big data where once inconsequential information such as our purchasing habits are now being collected as an invisible, routine process. Where is it all heading? The Pew Research Center has recently released the report – The Future of Privacy: digital life in 2025 in which experts conclude that the struggle with our personal data and public profiles will extend through the next decade as attitudes and legislation adjust to the new landscape.

Some expect that governments and corporations will continue to expand upon the already prevalent tracking of people’s personal lives and the data-basing and magnetisation of personal information. Others expect it may be possible that new approaches will emerge to enable individuals to better control their identities and exercise more choice about who knows what.

There is much food for thought in this report as it looks towards the next 10 years.  Read the report…

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