Social Negotiation Of Privacy Analysis

Improved Essays
Urbanization and the introduction of advanced technology have altered the meaning of and value of privacy; instead of seclusion and publicity being two separate, binary entitles, staying in control of personal information has become a negotiation. Charles Fried, a Beneficial Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, argues that privacy is a “basic right” that allows individuals to define their relationships with others (478-479). In their article about the experiences of young people online, Valerie Steeves, Associate Professor at the University of Ottawa, and Priscilla Regan, Professor at George Mason University, agree that privacy is essential — it is “among the rights, duties, or values of any morally legitimate social and political system” …show more content…
Fried argues that privacy and respect are prerequisites for relationships of love, friendship, and trust (480). According to Steeves and Regan, this social negotiation of privacy is vital in order to “navigate the boundary between self/other and between being closed/open to social interaction” (300). Privacy is dialectical: it is a spectrum that is always being negotiated (Steeves & Regan 309-310). It is not a question of whether individuals require privacy, but how much is beneficial, and why. Privacy is reliant on the social context; Steeves and Regan reported adolescents being comfortable posting personal information online, but discontent with their parents or “older male strangers” viewing it (302). Thus, the need for privacy is contingent on context and the nature of the personal information being revealed. In relationships, the amount of information shared creates differing degrees of intimacy which enables the individual to define his or her relationships with others. Both Posner and Fried referring to personal information as a form of social currency, something that can be “spent” on a friend or a partner (Fried 485; Posner 14). Since love and friendship are built on trust, and trust is a manifestation of privacy, “they require a context of privacy or the possibility of privacy for their existence” (Fried 477). While Steeves and Regan agree with this sentiment — privacy is “deeply linked to identity and relationship” — Posner denies this concept (300). He claims that only in the case of business and formal, signed agreements is privacy legally guaranteed. Since there is no formal promise of privacy in a relationship, it must not be a precondition (Posner 20). Evidently, relationships do not require privacy to exist; instead, privacy enables individuals to define said relationships via intimacy, the sharing of information without

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    Jeffrey Rosen’s oddly titled essay, “The Naked Crowd”, actively attempts to prove that the concept and actions society has adopted are ruining our identities and compromising our privacy. The idea Rosen busily disapproves of across the text is that Americans prefer openness rather than privacy. Rosen yearns to remove this logic from people. He explains how their mentality plus the latest technology at their hands, causes an unacceptable consequence. For exposing ourselves to feel accepted and different will only end up making us “more like each other” (Rosenwasser 487).…

    • 1635 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Great Essays

    Why Privacy Matters

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages

    In this essay the author Solove has contends that the issue of privacy influences more than just people concealing an off-base. He clarifies how this argument originates from a lacking meaning of what privacy is and the worth that privacy has. The disciples of the nothing-to-hide argument express that in light of the fact that the information won't be uncovered to the general population, the privacy hobby is negligible, and the security enthusiasm for…

    • 1428 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Why Privacy Matter Even If You Have “Nothing to Hide” In the article “Why Privacy Matter Even If You Have ‘Nothing to Hide,”’ Daniel J. Solove, talking about the government governed the information to analyze without the permission. Many people didn’t realize how many problems by let the government take their information to analyze. Solove does a great job to persuade the readers that we deserve more the privacy by using the appeal to authority and anecdote.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Bank transactions, social media, and medical release forms, are just a few examples of privacy matters encountered daily, but what definition does privacy hold in today’s society? In Professor Daniel J. Solove’s essay, “Why Privacy Matters Even if You Have ‘Nothing to Hide’,” he debates that privacy issues affect more than individuals with something to hide. Professor Solove describes how an insufficient definition of privacy allows for an interpretation of its meaning. Privacy, However, cannot be condensed to one particular principle. He explains, “It (privacy) is a plurality of different things that do not share any one element but nevertheless bear a resemblance to one another.”…

    • 974 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In “Tracking Is an Assault on Liberty”, Nicholas Carr addresses the impact losing online privacy has on society. Using multiple examples of extracting personal data, Carr informs the reader of how easy it can be to overstep internet boundaries in the modern world. Online companies or advertisers use computerized algorithms for profit, predicting who we are, what we are doing, and where we are going. Behind fervent research and analysis, Carr forms a strong opposition towards the lack of online privacy and the dangers it poses for society. Successfully convincing readers that it is time to protect our online privacy rights, Carr appeals for justice before they affect our civil liberties.…

    • 878 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    This paper will delve into and critically analyze Thomson’s perspective of privacy rights as being unpersuasive because it is diluted, incoherent, and subjective. To achieve this goal, the paper is organized into two main sections. The first section consists of a summary on the arguments Judith Thomson makes to aid her in proving her conception of privacy and the second section this conceptual paper will examine and evaluate Thomson’s paper. Judith Thomson states in her work that there is little consensus as to what privacy rights entail. She claims in her paper that this may be due to the fact that privacy issues do not have distinctive characteristics which separate them from other right and this makes it difficult to form boundaries as to where other rights end and where privacy rights begin.…

    • 1075 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The concept of self-disclosure is best explained and illustrated through Privacy Management Theory. In a basic sense, Privacy Management Theory explains how people treat personal information, what conditions affect self-disclosure, and why people choose to self-disclose information in a relationship (Guerrero, Andersen, & Afifi, 2014). The two guiding principles of the theory are that people have “ownership” of and create “boundaries” for personal information (Guerrero, Andersen, & Afifi, 2014). In other words, the theory posits that people possess their secrets, experiences, memories, and other private information similar to the way in which they possess material items, and that they protect private information by creating metaphorical walls…

    • 1844 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As a result of social networking and involuntarily giving out our personal data, we have mostly agreed and consented to our invasion of privacy. Throughout the essay,…

    • 1456 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Greyson Jennings 9 November 2014 Political Life To Be Advanced, Or To Be Free? Who would think that the technology of the future would also mean a person must sacrifice their privacy? In Dave Egger’s 2013 novel, The Circle is very advanced in technology, but because they are so advanced they overstepped their bounds and have now begun to intrude on personal privacy. Once a person begins work for The Circle their privacy is automatically given up. However, people do not notice it is such a big deal until later when it starts to affect other aspects of their life completely unrelated to The Circle.…

    • 1845 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Privacy Moore Analysis

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Throughout the chapter, it became utterly clear how the definition of privacy has altered within different minds. Specifically, Moore comments that the there are so many different definitions of privacy because one definition can not relate to all situations. In his words, “...they are not able to do justice to all the phenomena of friendship; since one definition will not suit all, they think there are no other friendships; but the others are friendships.’’ The same may be said of privacy” (Moore, 1). Again, all friendships are different, so one definition of friendship can not relate to all.…

    • 327 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nothing To Hide Analysis

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages

    In the article, Nothing to Hide, there is the reference to the various aspects of information privacy, with consideration of the inherent risks existing in the structure as it stands, concerning the advancement of the digital era. The author notes that “the nothing-to-hide argument pervades discussions about privacy.” The historical context of the argument is laid out where reference is made to the origins of the “nothing-to-hide” narrative, in the cultural and legal contexts. The policy is analyzed from a point of the risks it poses, the things that could go wrong at once justifying and in one stroke, condemning the practice.…

    • 412 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Inviolate Personality

    • 68 Words
    • 1 Pages

    Further to the introduction of the newspaper printing press and photography, privacy issues have increasingly occupied public space. Samuel D. Louis Brandeis and Warren wrote their article on privacy in the Harvard Law Review (Warren & Brandeis 1890) partly in protest of intrusive activities of the journalists of those days. They argued that there is a “right to be left alone” based on a principle of “inviolate…

    • 68 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Separateness

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Recalling that the fantasy of privacy is the temptation to forfeit or deny the controls…

    • 783 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Mapping, and Sharing the Consumer Genome What if there was a way to know everything possible about a total stranger one never met before. Are people privacy now at risk, who can be trusted, or even more important, is this true. In the article “Mapping, and Sharing the Consumer Genome”, author Natasha Singer answers the questions and tells who and why someone would want to know so much about people in a few negative and strong tones. Author Singer’s meaningful purpose to make people aware was very informative in her article.…

    • 786 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Schoeman, F.: Introduction. In: Philosophical Dimensions of Privacy: An Anthology, ed. Schoeman, F. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1984) 2. Brey, P.: The Importance of Privacy in the Workplace.…

    • 1465 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays