The Apolitics of Connectivity: Privacy, Isolation, Democracy in the Digital Age

• In Event: Democratizing Digital Tech? Democratic Prospects and Pitfalls in the Digital Age

Abstract

At the turn of the twentieth-century, moral and political rights to privacy were thought to consist of two protections: one against the unwanted perception and another against an overexposure to information. In the digital era, however, our understanding of the moral and political value of privacy consists almost entirely in the former. Indeed, it is common in both scholarly and public debates to think that increased knowledge of the world and current events, more connection and communication with one’s fellow citizens and human beings, offer only benefits to agency, engaged citizenship, and democratic accountability. In these debates, democratic isolation is largely understood in terms of limitations in access to information and opportunities for participation in public discourse.

However, recent work in social science and psychology reveals that although there is truth to this picture of democratic isolation, it is only part of the story. In the digital age, increased connectivity and participation in online publics have led not only to an amplification and democratization of public discourse, but also to a simultaneous and connected increase in psychological and political isolation. This paper seeks to understand this paradoxical connection. It draws on the history and philosophy of privacy, the social-science and psychological literature on digital isolation, and an Arendtian social ontology of the public sphere to provide an account of the political dangers of life in a hyper-connected world. The paper begins by reviving late-nineteenth century ideas about privacy’s value as a limitation on the spread of publicity and discursive publics. It connects these ideas to contemporary social-scientific and psychological literature concerning the isolating effects of digital publics and hyper-connectivity. Then it draws on the work of Hannah Arendt, Sheldon Wolin, Thomas Nagel, and others to develop an account of the dangers that hyper-connectivity poses for democracy (in addition to its benefits). The paper concludes by suggesting normative standards for striking a democratically healthy balance between an under- and over-connected polity.

Author

• Lowry Pressly, Brown University