Claustrovobia and virtual phobia(s)?
Posted by Tim Cole on April 25th, 2007
I was at the latest Mash Up event in London last night, all about Identity 2. It was a very informative evening, the panel were excellent, and it was well worth the trip. On the train on the way back I was reflecting on what was covered in the evening, and some of the comments around identity theft, anonymity etc. For some reason I got to thinking about VPEX (virtual personality extension), and figured that as our identity extends into virtual space, then there is no reason to expect that these extensions would not also be prone to parallel afflictions to those in the real world.
The panel’s closing comment was along the lines that privacy is fast becoming an endangered thing, and there is no way to hold back the tide. Seeing as our every move online is tracked and logged (somewhere), then surely that can lead in some to a real sense of “claustrovobia”, a fear of being trapped, of not being able to escape virtual surveillance. Our virtual personality cannot go out the door without being monitored, which leads to a sense of diminishing freedom. I am sure a more general set of virtual afflictions will one day be diagnosed and catalogued, but it seems that “vobias” are a good place to start. After all, we are moving into a whole new world and there are many unknowns to concern ourselves with.
