From sofa to park bench.
Public has become the new default. Picasaweb, for instance, permits us
to make our photo albums "unlisted", but we have to make that choice,
rather than "choose" to go public. If we want to share an album with
a select group, we can send a link (for both "public" and "unlisted"
albums) via email. It's as though between the personal and the totally public
there's an almost unpopulated no-man's land. Small groupings - families, for instance,
are simply a subset of "public" rather than something special or specific
unto themselves. I suppose the technology dictates this - limiting permissions
to a defined subset seems more a function of "open" than of "closed".
Posting photographs on a public site like Flickr or Picasaweb blurs the boundaries
between our different social spheres. We don't have to log in to see our own photo
albums, though I doubt that we'd suddenly see them as "outsiders" might
see them simply because we haven't logged in. Still, knowing that others might
be watching over our shoulders as we view our own albums probably influences,
even if only slightly, the way we view them ourselves.
Go to: To hold in our hands.