Exclusively bilateral information exchange (EBIE): privacy versus society


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Our genus homo sapiens is a relatively recent development. Although we sometimes have serious doubts, in general our history in these last 100 - 200.000 years can be perceived as a sequence of successes. We owe these successes to our cultural traditions, essentially based on 2 virtues: (1) On our capability to communicate with each other, and (2) on our longevity.
Not even our closest relatives have command of a signing system as complex and versatile as ours. It has been speculated that humans developed language mainly to increase the number of efficient social interactions (Dunbar 1996; 2003), and that language stands at the origin of all technical and artistic developments (Corballis 2004). On the other hand, human females live well beyond their fertility - longer than other primates (Hawkes 2004; Cohen 2004). While most of our hominid ancestors and cousins died young, a recent comparative study came to the conclusion that out of a sample of 74 early upper paleolithic homo sapiens remains, 50 (i.e. 68%) had died adult (Caspari & Lee 2004).
We communicate with many conspecifics in many different ways, and we do that during a long life. A long life offers the opportunity the accumulate experiences and to pass them on to following generations. In prehistoric times, tradition was maintained by imitation and oral notice; social cohesion left its mark in the guise of symbols, taboos, and rituals. While the brain is the site of individual memory, culture and tradition reflect the memory of the community. In historic times, after invention of writing, the memory of the community became more and more comprehensive. Today, we still devote some time to conventional face-to-face communication, but for the most part we deal with second-hand information from the media, and to an increasing extent, even our primary communication is limited to purely acoustic or written text channels.
The latest trick in human communication technology is the advancement of exclusively bilateral information exchange (EBIE). What 10-15 years ago started as the luxury of a privileged minority, has turned today into a common habit. From childhood onward, in our days almost every individual is armed with his/her personal communication device (PCD). By that, it is possible to exchange information with any individual without the awareness of anybody else. This is accomplished not only by vocal communication via miniature wireless phones (MWPs), but also by electronically conveyed messages (ECMs), most often in written form.
EBIE is not a new invention and may be as old as the human race. Since humans are inclined to establish life-long (mostly hetero-sexual) bonds (Dupanloup et al. 2003), it appears very likely that the greatest part of human communication at all times was of this type. What is new, however, is the ease of undergoing EBIEs with multiple partners, thanks to PCDs like MWPs and ECMs.
Just observe any holder of an MWP, when his/her phone starts to ring in a public place. If there is any chance to do so, he/she will leave the room (usually with an excuse for the bad connection). We prefer to foster our EBIEs without witnesses; eventually, we call back. After the 2nd or 3rd attempt, any connection can be established in perfect privacy, agreement from both sides provided. This is especially true for contacts via ECM, which always can be handled in seclusion.
Is this ease of privacy a significant advancement for our cultural development? Does it add to our well-being? What does it do to our society? On the one hand, these revolutionary developments in telecommunication have the potential to increase significantly the feeling of freedom for the members of any society. On the other hand, however, they may also increase the feeling of solitude for others, or even for the same. Our society was not built on pair bondings, but on complex group dynamics. Starting with the first hunter/gatherer societies, and especially with the advent of agriculture and economy, human success has always been the outcome of team-work. The complexity of multilateral relations, with the necessity to find a group consensus on controversial issues, confronted our ancestors with inescapable challenges. The only efficient way to deal with these challenges was the open dispute in an actively communicating, quarrelsome, living society.
But in our days, a good deal of communication energy is wasted practically unheard, by increasing densities of EBIE. Continued EBIE has the tendency to disconnect from further social relatedness. It may unfold without any social feedback or control, depriving the protagonists of the dynamic involvement in multilateral processes, a characteristic feature of the human world. The feasibility of EBIE is tempting us to partition our complex social life into dialogues, with the results of these dialogues rarely leaving the private setting. In that way, nothing of relevance for our society results from these lonesome efforts, although they leave us with the illusion of having produced something of high social value.
Furthermore, it is a deplorable fact that we do not deal with our neighbour always as well as we should, especially if nobody is looking. Most acts of abuse and cruelty occur between close relatives, and only few of them ever see the light of public awareness. The rules governing our moral life are imposed on us by social convention, and our life-style is under continuous social scrutiny, whether we like that or not. Social control of behavior is at the heart of human identity (Castro & Toro 2004). The prevalence of EBIE, however, withdraws increasing domains of our activities from social control.
We all love EBIE with PCDs, be it with MWPs or with ECMs. It's easy, it's agreeable, it's nice (although it has it's price). But on the long-term, not all nice things are always good for us. Maybe we should not be concerned too much about our privacy, and more so about our social needs. It's not always a mistake if people know about people. Maybe we should start thinking about returning little bits of our privacy back to society?
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further reading: An open data world (11/13)

Caspari R, Lee S-H (2004) Older age becomes common late in human evolution. PNAS 101:10895>10900

Castro L, Toro M (2004) The evolution of culture: From primate social learning to human culture. PNAS 101:10235>10240

Cohen AA (2004) Female post-reproductive lifespan: a general mammalian trait. Biol Rev 79:733>750

Corballis M (2004) The origins of modernity: Was autonomous speech the critical factor? Psychol Rev 111:543>552

Dunbar (1996). Grooming, Gossip and the Evolution of Language. Faber Faber and Harvard University Press.

Dunbar RIM (2003) The social brain: Mind, language and society in evolutionary perspective. Ann Rev Anthropol 32:163>181

Dupanloup I, Pereira L, Bertorelle G, Calafell F, Prata MJ, Amorim A, Barbujani G (2003) A recent shift from polygyny to monogamy in humans is suggested by the analysis of worldwide Y-chromosome diversity. J Mol Evol 57:85>97

Hawkes K (2004) The grandmother effect. Nature 428:128>129