Privacy – How a lack of media competence is threatening our future

The right of the individual to be protected against intrusion into his personal life or affairs, or those of his family, by direct physical means or by publication of information.
- Report of the Committee on Privacy and Related Matters, Chairman David Calcutt QC, 1990, Cmnd.
1102, London: HMSO, at 7.

Privacy is a human right. The need for a personal space, protected and hidden from those we don‘t trust has been part of our life even since birth of humanity. In the modern life protected by law, we still see privacy as something holy, a basic human right. Since the triumphal march of modern communication and the internet, privacy of information and communication has moved into focus of our society. Therefore it is no surprise that topics about this basic right lead to excitement. But how can we protect our own personal space in times where information about everything is freely available and easy to access? Where can the line be drawn between what is private and what we want to share with others? And how does our changing live has an impact on our definition of privacy itself?

Today information technology is omnipresent. In Germany cell phones already outnumber the population and the Internet spreads every year, reaching 61% circulation in 2007. While many of older generations still struggle with this wave of technology, a new born child will see this technology as a normal part of it‘s life.

Over the last few years there has been a revolution on the internet – transforming it into something new. Having started as a medium for exchange and publishing of mostly academic information, the internet was only used by a few people. New technologies like high speed internet emerged and allowed a new wave of users to join the global community, giving them access to not only information but also to technologies that allowed them to publish and share information on their own and thus becoming “prosumers” - producers and consumers in one. The technical was followed by a social revolution and the internet became a real mass medium.
Today millions of users share information about themselves on social networks or blogs upload videos on portals like YouTube or pictures on flicker. Personal news feeds make it easy to keep friends informed about what is going on, even if they are far away. The world has become a smaller place and it feels good to be connected to those we hold dear and even those we don‘t even know yet. And since we are in control what we release about ourselves, there is nothing to worry about.

In January 2009 American scientists conducted research “to determine the prevalence of and associations among displayed risk behaviour information that suggests sexual behaviour, substance use, and violence in a random sample of the self-reported 18-year-old adolescents‘ publicly accessible MySpace Web pro- files.” In a survey of 500 participants, the results were alarming. A total of 270 profiles (54%) contained risk information about behaviour. “120 (24.0%) referenced sexual behaviours, 205 (41.0%) referenced substance use, and 72 (14.4 %) referenced violence”.

But why do especially young internet users care so little about their own privacy? The answer is as complex and manifold as society itself. All our actions are influenced by our environment, virtual or not. Basic needs and motivations remain the same, on and off the web. It was in 1943, when the American psychologist Abraham Maslow described those needs in his famous pyramid model. It consist of physical needs, followed by security, love and esteem concluded by the need for a purpose in life and the need for self-actualisation which all require the preceding to be satisfied.

Especially younger users are easily seduced by possibilities the web offers for self presentation and for shaping the personal image to something more interesting than in reality. Struggle for attention has begun. The pressure to fulfill the expectations of their environment drives many to extreme measures. That every information released on the internet might stay there forever and will be accessible by future employers most of them forget.

But why don‘t they feel threatened by releasing so many personal information? Is not the need for security a more important need than esteem, as Maslow suggested? The answer might be very simple and yet complex at the same time. - Many don‘t know that their actions on the web might affect their „real life“.

In the beginning, the internet has been a medium without many regulations. Most countries haven’t had effective laws for online use and even if laws existed they failed to have the tools and expertise to enforce them. Not for nothing illegal file sharing sites flourished during these times. This is still the case, even though the media industry started to fight back, a fact which made many realize that the internet is no lawless space after all.

This learning process has just started and is still in its early stages. Although the internet is now recognized as a place where illegal actions will be punished, most people still don‘t understand, that every action, though legal, can affect their life. And since it might take a few years until they are caught by their mistakes they make today, the learning process might come to late.

Fact is that many, youths and adults, use the new medium without care due to media competence. This media competence cannot be taught by parents, who most of the time know less about this medium than their kids. It also cannot be enforced by law or via technological means or even worse, by demonizing the medium itself like it is done with computer games. The only way to give the following generation a comprehensive media competence is to make this a topic in their daily lives. This might be in school, in tv series, in magazines or other means.

In order to reach this goal, the teachers have to teach themselves first.

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