Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Privacy Please!
Human beings need to be able to have privacy when they think they need it—it’s a cornerstone of good mental health. “Privacy” and being “distraction free” can seem like the same thing and the terms are often used interchangeably, but here we’re talking about privacy in the strict sense of its meaning to psychologists. Privacy is not being seen or heard by other people or seeing or hearing others—or at least not being able to tell what other people are doing (you’re looking at them through frosted glass, for example), or pick out the words that they’re speaking (a perfectly silent space is impossible, and close approximations of it stresses us out). Having privacy can be considered a sort of environmental control. In a setting simply without distractions, someone else can arrive at any time, bursting the privacy bubble. When someone has privacy, visual and acoustic access to the space …
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