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Privacy is overlooked and underrated. In the world where we’re constantly barraged by the importance of transparency and it’s buzz word equivalent radical transparency – the web 2.0 of opacity – having a life outside of the spotlight is being transformed into a dastardly act of doom for anyone interested in success in any form.
I don’t want my life observed.
I want to write. I want to create. I want people to feel as if they know me. But I want my life to be my life. Everyday I’m told about how I should start sharing everything I do to make myself more “authentic” and “real”. Last time I checked I ain’t plastic and these words aren’t written by a machine – how more real could I get?
I see the value and allure of transparency of living, don’t get me wrong. I share many things with the world and appreciate when companies don’t hide their mistakes under layers of jargon and ambiguity. Yet, there’s something frightening about a world in which every action is in the public eye. It’s as if anyone building a career these days must become a pseudo-Hollywood celebrity. Your walk down the street may involve less camera flashes, but the scrutiny, the intrusiveness, the fear – it’s all there.
Anyways, I’ve rewritten this article 3 times simply because I’ve been struggling to get my point across. But then fellow blogger Corbett Barr of Free Pursuits wrote about his move towards Radical Lifestyle Transparency and within the comments section I shared my thoughts (this is a shortened version – full comment here):
I have no problem with being open and love when companies don’t use meaningless jargon but I still think there is still value in maintaining privacy. Much of this radical transparency talk seems to be centred around taking your private life and taking it public. But it seems to me that that’d cheapen the experience of life itself.
Instead of just doing something for the sake of doing it, you’d do something but at the same time be thinking about how you were going to get it up on YouTube or what a great blog post it’d make.
Perhaps that’s not the greatest example, but it’s like what many travel writers say about travel: if you like to travel don’t become a travel writer. You have to be passionate about the travel writing itself, because the act of sharing the experience of travel entirely changes the travel – you must be constantly taking notes, being keenly aware of your surroundings and spend days at a type writing up an essay. It’s not necessarily bad, but if you want the original experience (the travel) then it becomes lost, tarnished.
My main point is to not overlook the benefits of privacy. I love sharing some of my life with the world, but with all the talk about transparency I can see a time when people will feel obligated to share more than they wish to. And that obligation will take the joy out of openness.
Not too long after Adam of ManVsDebt.com replied, and shared his positive experiences with Radical Financial Transparency:
I’ve recently began tracking my expenses daily (publicly) on my blog. In addition, we’ve shared account balances, family photos from our travels, etc… I’ll also planning on doing a project sharing what I eat and my workout schedules?
Why?
Because it heightens my experience of these events. The accountability that comes from knowing people will be following my daily actions and ensuring that they align with my stated passions and purpose is exhilarating.
Just this week, I’ve turned away a couple impulse purchases knowing that I’d have to share that information. Today, I with 100% certainty I would have eaten junk food had I not been taking pictures of everything I eat for an upcoming project. Sure, these are little things, but the motivation to be consistent even in my small daily actions is awesome. What’s cheap about that?
And then I replied:
…there have been quite a few times where I’ve been doing something cool and begin to feel obligated to share it with the world because of this continued touting of the need for transparency.
Perhaps it’s a weakness of my own, not being able to focus on a moment with the idea of needing to share it, and maybe the average blogger doesn’t feel that it could become an obligation. But it’s just my experience.
I do see the value in holding yourself accountable to the world though, but with such broad topics such as life itself there’s a nagging feeling that soon every action will have some ulterior motive as a way to impress an audience rather than just doing what you truly want to do. Once again, that may just be my own weakness.
My main issues with the idea of radical transparency are:
Inauthentic action. Purposefully doing things for financial or egotistical gain or feeling guilty for doing what others may consider boring because it won’t make a great story. Every actions begins to have an ulterior motive with no option for mistakes because of fear of criticism.
Because there’s only a few seriously transparent individuals out on the web at the moment this isn’t really a problem. But what about when transparency loses its new and shiny factor – when it becomes average. You don’t have to look very far to see celebrities whose lives are founded on publicity stunts. On a smaller scale I think we could see a similar effect.
Self imposed big brother. Everyone’s watching, all the time. Maybe I’m just paranoid but that freaks me out. At the moment people are simply sharing their finances and goals, but this transparency fetish is powering ahead quickly. How long is it before it’s considered the norm to let everyone know your exact location in real time? Or before 24-hour live streams from your workstation are consider must-dos?
Those two examples sound rather silly. But imagine 10 years ago if you explained that there was going to be a site where you can share with the world what you’re doing at that exact moment. It’d be considered ridiculous. And now there are Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, Tumblr, FriendFeed…
Obligation. People should always have a choice, but with all this talk of transparency it feels like you either have to sacrifice your private life or be ostracised. No one explains the middle way that can be taken – being honest and open, but not going to the extremes of radical transparency in sharing everything.
But in all honesty, at the moment I don’t believe radical transparency has gone too far – out of my comfort zone certainly, but still within reasonable limits. My main fear is that it will too far. As public figures continually try to one up each other in terms of apparent authenticity lives will be broadcast to the world in their entirety. And that scares me.
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If you’re wondering where this is coming from, I’ve been brooding about transparency and privacy since watching the trailer for We Live in Public, a documentary I’m eager to see about an experiment of making your life public conducted by Josh Harris, a legendary internet entrepreneur. If you’re web worker the trailer (below) may hit you close to home.
How far should transparency go? Do you just want honesty in business? Or are the gritty details about the lives of individuals necessary?
Is up to us, the content creators, to determine how transparent we should be? Or is maintaining relative privacy simply resisting inevitable change?
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And this is my blog, Adventures of a Barefoot Geek. I write about a range of topics including how to achieve peace of mind, mobility and simplicity - all mixed in with some good ol' fashioned geekery.
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Thorough points made.
Recently, I have seen the explosion of transparency of what appears every bloggers life. I love seeing the growth and development of people (and their blogs) but some times keeping my life mine is also great.
The last few weeks have seemed to question my semi-private approach. I have started to question whether or not I should been more transparent. I have, for now, decided I will keep my life semi-private. I love sharing experiences, but dictating my actions based on what others think is unnatural in my eyes.
By know means do I not enjoy reading the transparent lives of those like Adam Baker of MVD, but I am just not secure enough in doing the same.
Thanks for sharing this. Thought I was alone on this thought.
Dave Damron
LifeExcursion & The Minimalist Path
Thanks for the comment Dave. I too enjoy reading content from individuals who aren’t afraid to share who they are, it’s just the idea of a continually exposed world freaks me out. It’s sort of like, when will it stop? Is there some line we’ll reach and go “No, this should be part of our private life” or will privacy simply evaporate? :-)
I find myself over-joyed that there is a shift towards people living a more public/transparent life. It forces awareness, It forces a higher state of consciousness, it forces an examined life. I say show as much as each individual person is comfortable with, if that’s nothing then so be it. I doubt anyone will miss the insight of a life that a person feels no obligation to share.
I think this one phenomenon, transparency, will have an enormous impact on this generation.
As I re-read the article, I can see that the issue is that you feel an “obligation” to be transparent. Why? What are you goals/dreams/visions? If you are DEAD SET on reaching them and they require you to live some level of transparency then do it. If they don’t, then don’t.
By the way, I just started reading your stuff and I’m enjoying it immensely.
Thanks for the comment Mike. I understand that everyone has comfort zones of what they want to share but I worry that the world will be pushed towards sharing more than they’re comfortable with in a self-promotional effort. Perhaps my worries will never come to fruition, but I felt I may as well share them – it is a blog after all. And it means a lot that you’ve been liking what I have to share. :-)
I agree with Dave and Mike. You have the power to choose how much transparency you have. I show only a semi-transparency on my blog. I actually plan to become a bit more transparent in video posts, but I’ll always aim to keep some aspects about my private life private.
Hey Gordie. Coincidentally my first “live action” (aka, not a screencast) video post is going up in a couple of days! And I realise that that contrasts with what I’ve said here somewhat, but I think what I was mainly getting at within the article was to identify the need for limits and not be pressured into sharing more than necessary. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
Good points, I agree with much of what you’ve said. One point I’ve been wanting to make somewhere is to emphasize that transparency shouldn’t be confused with honesty. Just because someone isn’t transparent doesn’t mean they are somehow dishonest. And just because someone is transparent doesn’t make them honest, either. A company’s books may be very transparent, for example, and still full of fudges. So in the rush to transparency, just remember that’s not the only way to be an honest person or even to prove honesty or authenticity, as you’ve nicely pointed out.
That’s very true. Transparency sends out a signal of honesty but true honesty doesn’t require exposure of the inner workings of a life or business. True honesty is shared by the way in which you share valuable information, treat customers and maintain your values.
As you saw with my post today, I’m not necessarily advocating across-the-board transparency. But I think if one isn’t transparent in the area of life for which they write, it usually amounts to dishonesty because there’s usually something being hidden. And in the cases where nothing is being hidden and the writer is exactly as authoritative as they are implying in their work, a lack of transparency does a great disservice to their readers because people have a tendency to deify those they perceive to live the lifestyle they’d like to live so as to write them off as one of the lucky few. For example, to some extent I experienced this with Corbett at Free Pursuits. When I started reading Free Pursuits in June he was in Mexico and had 500 subscribers. I was sure that he was just smarter and wealthier than most people. I used this as an excuse not to expect the same for myself. Now, not to take away from his obvious intelligence, but imagine my surprise when, through his post, I learned that we are in about the same situation financially. Then it stopped being “Corbett is so lucky” and became “If he’s doing it, why can’t I?”
So to sum it up, if you’re writing about personal finance like Adam at ManVsDebt, radical financial transparency is obvious and necessary. If you’re writing about freelancing and escaping much hated work, like I am, financial transparency doesn’t make much sense beyond some basic monthly or yearly numbers. Why? Because I suck with personal finances and people don’t expect me to be an expert with finances anyway.
Hey JD, thanks for the great comment. I actually have an article coming up about what you’re sort of talking about, which is skewed perceptions. I do thing it’s very important to bring how people view you back to the real world because it’s easy to perceive someone greater than they am.
JD makes a great point and more or less hits on the head what I wanted to say but I want to take it a step farther.
“A lack of transparency does a great disservice to their readers because people have a tendency to deify those they perceive to live the lifestyle they’d like to live so as to write them off as one of the lucky few.”
I found myself taking this stance when I first started reading all these Lifestyle Design/LIP blogs, but as I read more I stopped feeling like they were so far beyond me. That feeling didn’t emerge from this huge rush of transparency. It came out of reading between the lines.
I just wrote about my thoughts on this on JDs blog, so I won’t go into it too deep again here, but the jist was that I don’t feel like I’ve been lied to, I feel like I’m getting excited about a lot of ideas that other people are just starting to get excited about. Though every once and a while I get a little irritated when everyone is spouting out the exact same information, I understand that we’re all reading the same books and following the same people; arguably, none of us are positioned to be an expert in any of this yet because we’re still in pursuit of what works for us. That’s what I’m interested in hearing about. That’s when I appreciate the transparency; when something we’re learning is directly applied to something you’re doing, and when that works and when it doesn’t.
I don’t want to know about people’s personal lives, unless of course it directly affects or pertains to the point they’re making, the experiments they’re testing, etc. And I don’t think that too many people are going to start spewing unnecessary information out there.
What I love about your blog, David, is that I got that you were “just some kid who writes about some stuff” from the way that you write, I never felt like I needed you to say it. And I think that’s a characteristic difference here; there are more ways to be authentic than blatant transparency, and some credit should be given to the readers for their ability to see through to what isn’t being said. I certainly don’t want to be lied to, but so long as I’m not outright lied to, I can usually discern when someone is testing the waters versus explaining what they know to work.
In any case, keep writing authentically like you do, sharing your experiences as you do, and please don’t feel any obligation to share more than you want because I don’t really want to know what you don’t want to tell me ;)
Heh, that’s a pretty long comment for not wanting to go too deep. ;)
But it’s great your brought up the point about me labelling myself as “just some kid who writes about some stuff” because I had a feeling people were considering me more an authority than I felt I was, and like I said in my reply to JD above, that’s a skewed perception. Just trying to bring how people view me back down to Earth. :)
David, I already respected you and became a subscriber (something I rarely do anymore) before this post – now, you’re the MAN!!!! The fact that you HAVE an offline life and care to keep some privacy is another quality that sets you apart. Genuine humility is evidenced in your writing; it indicates you remain teachable. Added transparency would be redundant, overkill. At the risk of riding on Kristin’s coat tails: Ditto that – all she wrote. She has eloquently expressed thoughts similar to those swirling in my head.
With respect to other bloggers, no matter what their forte, I personally don’t give a rat’s lunch what they eat, what they spend or budget – they are no less human than I am. Moreover, I don’t require anyone to be “accountable” to me for what they choose to do. I’m inclined to believe most (not all) the “radical” efforts are more about building readership numbers than quality content. Additionally, my current peeve with the most lifestyle bloggers (and this reveals my age) is the penchant for throwing in language that is less than first class (ie: “sh*t, sh*tty, etc.) The sort of words that one would edit from their speech if in the presence of someone they admired and respected. That’s when they lose me as a subscriber. Why not afford one’s readers the same respect? Again, this may be considered old world values, less than cutting edge.
Lastly, I know a few bloggers whose lives offline little resemble the highly edited life story they fashion for their online audience. At times, they’re so busy staging friends, family, scenery and getting the desired camera angle on a life event, (shreiking “this will be awesome for my blog!”), they are not truly present as the moment occurs. Thus the EXPERIENCE is less genuine due to all focus on reporting the event rather than being in the event. Often they attempt to make life happen rather than to simply experience the unfolding.
Okay, before you tell me to scram and get my own blog, I’ll say “good night.” :-)
ps: great post BTW!
Bah, I’m getting another warm and fuzzy feeling so thanks for the kind words Jean, it really means a lot to me and keeps me going when I’m tempted to chase opportunities that I care less about than my writing. And that’s a great point about remaining teachable because that’s something I’ve struggled with in the past – I’d latch on to certain ideas and stick with them no matter – but I’ve been making an effort to read opinions that I disagree with at first to find the truth of them. :-)
Great post David. That is something that I struggled with at times while traveling for the past 13 months and blogging about it. The Journey was for me to experience the crazy & beautiful world we live in, which is what transpired, but many people also wanted to follow me. It made me feel good that people I did & didn’t expect followed my writing and the compliments I got, but at the same time (like you mentioned) I would look at things some times and think about it in a blogging perspective. What would be cool to write about? What do people want to hear/see/etc.?
I then would think, well I am just posting 1 picture & 250 words on the past 3 days or 10 pics & 1000 words on the past 2 weeks. It shows a lot of good stuff, but also allows me to not share whatever I want.
Kind of a conundrum, haha. Maybe I’ll just go grab a beer.
Cheers!
Hey Casey, thanks for confirming what I was worried about. Glad to know I’m not just making this stuff up ;)
Hi there David
I was reading a post on Gwen Bell’s blog today and thought about your article on privacy and transparency, so wanted to share:
http://www.gwenbell.com/blog/2009/10/15/has-transparency-killed-brand-magic.html
Cheers
Tracy
Thanks for sharing Tracy. Gwen’s thoughts are definitely similar to my own. :)
Thanks for this thoughtful blog post David. I enjoyed reading it and it is food for thought.
Susan
Thanks for the comment and compliment Susan. :)
There is an amusingly relevant novel by Ben Elton entitled “Blind Faith”, where every moment of your life is expected (by religion and law) to be broadcast with the world around you. From Amazon:
“Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody. Where what a person “feels” and “truly believes” is protected under the law, while what is rational, even provable, is condemned as heresy. A world where to question ignorance and intolerance is to commit a crime against Faith. Ben Elton’s dark, savagely comic novel imagines a postapocalyptic society where religious intolerance combines with a confessional sex-obsessed, self-centric culture to create a world where nakedness is modesty, ignorance is wisdom, and privacy is a dangerous perversion.”
http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Faith-Ben-Elton/dp/0552773905/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259534137&sr=8-1
Thanks for sharing that Kelly. Actually been checking out Ben Elton’s book lately, hadn’t stumbled across that one though. Will see if I can find an eBook version for my Kindle.