BLURRING LINES BETWEEN PUBLIC & PRIVATE

AS our digital personas grow and real-life ones shrink, the divide between what is public and what is private is blurring.

- ANURADHA GOYAL

As of now, it is leading to confusions, conflicts, outrages. Sometimes their magnitude drags the authorities to places where they do not belong naturally.

When my parents’ generation decided to join Facebook, it took a lot of effort to convince them that not everyone on social media is your friend. Not every link is to be clicked, not every friend request to be accepted and, most importantly, not to treat the social media wall as your drawing room and say anything you feel like saying. Their naivety is rooted in the simpler times they lived, when one could judge people by looks. Hospitality rules they followed meant being cordial to anyone who came in touch. It was not an easy transition from the real world to the virtual one.

At the other end of the spectrum, youngsters born in the internet era hardly know how to interact in the real world. Their world view comes from their screens. They prefer to text you even when you are sitting across the table. They cannot think of any activity or action without an app. Their distance from the real world as well as their immersion in the digital world is something my generation tries to understand with limited success.