Learning to Respect Digital Boundaries

Many wise people recommend keeping a journal to process the emotions and ideas of our inner world. The act of keeping a journal, or a record of our thoughts, gives us a platform on which to work through our struggles, toss up our feelings onto the page and then reflect as we observe the words and drawings.

It is therapeutic to put my words on paper and realize that I didn’t have to store them in my head any longer. By putting the words on paper, I could see patterns and get to the heart of the issue more quickly than by just stewing and ruminating over it in my head. I have tried several notebooks, bound journals, diaries, loose leaf pages, and more. A diary is like a low-tech pensive (thank you, Dumbledore).

Many TV shows and movies have made jokes around family members reading another’s diary. Even the books that had locks and keys were no match for a curious sibling’s desire to see what someone close is thinking about and recording.

In the 1990s, we saw the rise of digital devices. Everyone seemed to have access to a computer, email, and blogs. Nefarious folk realized the power of this data and found ways to use it as a weapon. Many among us have personally felt the betrayal of letting something personal fall into the hands of a malicious other. Luckily, we are making strides in sharing the awareness of the risks of not maintaining good digital security.

With the recent significant data breaches in the Portland area, I wonder how many of us have been processing these invasions of privacy. How many are pondering “Gosh, how could that message I sent as a joke be misinterpreted by someone I know?” Or perhaps something more like “Is my top-secret invention/research already for sale on the dark web?”

Our personal devices have become the new diary.

What happens when a family member gains access to a phone and goes spelunking? Especially if it’s a strained relationship? What the family member finds may shock them and lead to accusations and strained (or broken) relationships. And how many of us have played the game of “I suspect someone has betrayed me, so am I’m justified in betraying them to verify!”?

We are beginning to see that privacy is mostly an illusion. Everything is recorded for later processing, even the things we think are transient, such as our location data from a quick drive past several cell towers. We’ve almost come to accept that the big data companies will leak and sell our data, but at least that’s considered impersonal.

Part of the beauty of being human is working through this messiness and wrestling with all sides of a situation beyond right and wrong, because there are so many perspectives. Mathematically, every object can be viewed from at least 144 directions based on the geometry of a sphere – it’s no wonder we have seen a rise in spectrums.

In the end, I’ve realized that respecting emotional, mental, and yes, digital boundaries, is just as important as respecting physical boundaries. It begins with me and you, making conscious choices to respect the other’s rights to their own thoughts without judgment.

S. Cousins