I’m part of a generation used to living their life in full view – our collective adolescence measured in a succession of messaging apps and social networks. Each of them encouraged increasing levels of openness and entrenched the message: sharing prompts caring or, better yet, attention.
For much of my life, almost everything became fodder to be shared online. Funny texts from friends, videos of strangers on the street, stray thoughts about sexual proclivities. Privacy, both mine and that of the people I came into contact with, was a mythical concept. If I had experienced something, surely that made it my anecdote, to do with as I pleased? This approach caused problems. A man I was dating texted me to ask if a particular rant about bad communicators was about him (yes). A colleague warned me about sharing pictures in my underwear, prompting a furious reaction. Family fractures resulted from drunk tweets. But why, I would think defiantly, should I censor myself?
