Privacy as a Concept and a Social Issue: A Multidimensional Developmental Theory

Abstract

If we are to understand privacy as a future as well as a contemporary social issue, we must understand privacy as a concept. Individuals' concepts of privacy are tied to concrete situations in everyday life. These situations are described in terms of three dimensions: self‐ego, environmental, and interpersonal. In combination with the dynamic of time, both developmental and sociohistorical, this situational analysis helps us to understand individual perceptions of privacy and privacy invasion, to predict potential privacy or invasion experiences, and to see the potential effects of the absence of certain privacy‐related experiences.