Acquisti and colleagues discuss supporting humans’ need for privacy today and long ago in a recent issue of Science. Their findings shed light on positively providing physical and technical privacy. A press release issued by Science for the Aquisiti-lead article reports that the researchers “argue that the evolutionary roots of human privacy could teach a lesson about modern privacy and how to manage it in the digital age. . . . ‘Understanding and then accounting for those ancestral roots of privacy may be critical to secure its future’ [Acquisiti team quote]. . . . privacy and our need for it have remained constant throughout human history. Humans likely evolved their sense of privacy based on knowledge about their physical surroundings, such as detecting the presence of others. Even today, being alone is generally how the boundaries between public and private are defined. When it comes to digital privacy, these cues become irrelevant, disrupting an individual’s regulation of privacy because the physical cues are absent or easily manipulated, which may help explain the challenges in protecting digital privacy and the seemingly careless online behaviors of those who claim to care about their privacy.”
“Privacy’s Evolutionary Roots May Help Shape Its Future in the Digital Age.” 2022. Press release, Science Magazine, https://scienmag.com/privacys-evolutionary-roots-may-help-shape-its-future-in-the-digital-age/
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.