Ethics, Privacy, and Self-Restraint in Social Networking

Privacy is a basic human need. It is anthropologically and psychologically rooted in the sense of shame and the need for bodily integrity, personal space, and intimacy in interpersonal relationships. Especially in modern Western cultures, it is understood as a necessary condition for individual auto...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inPrivacy Online pp. 47 - 60
Main Author Debatin, Bernhard
Format Book Chapter
LanguageEnglish
Published Germany Springer Berlin / Heidelberg 2011
Springer Berlin Heidelberg
Subjects
Communication studies
Ethical & social aspects of computing
Ethical Justification
Informational Privacy
Online Social Network
Privacy Protection
Private Sphere
Social, group or collective psychology
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Summary:Privacy is a basic human need. It is anthropologically and psychologically rooted in the sense of shame and the need for bodily integrity, personal space, and intimacy in interpersonal relationships. Especially in modern Western cultures, it is understood as a necessary condition for individual autonomy, identity, and integrity (Altman 1975; Westin 1967; see also Margulis, this volume, Chap. 2). The desire for privacy is historically variable and has increased noticeably throughout the process of modernization. As Jürgen Habermas (1962) has shown in his seminal study The Transformation of the Public Sphere, this process led to the emergence of the private sphere as a corollary to the public sphere: the private sphere offers the protection and freedom necessary for the undisturbed growth and self-fulfillment of the modern subject, who then, as a citizen, can participate in exchanging opinions and forming public discourse in the communicative space of the public sphere.
ISBN:9783642215209
3642215203
DOI:10.1007/978-3-642-21521-6_5