Privacy is a Marathon

On a recent episode of This Week In Privacy, one of the Q&A questions asked "With it being Thanksgiving week in the US, what is one development in the privacy world that you are grateful for this year?"

Currently, we lose more than we win in privacy. Sad, but true. Sometimes this takes the form of regulations such as age verification laws, other times it's merely social norms that become hard to push back against like the proliferation of apps. But I posit that there are more wins than we realize.

Back when I co-hosted Surveillance Report, one thing I wanted to do every year was an end-of-the-year glance back at the good news in the privacy space from that year. Unfortunately I was always so busy that I never had time to go back through a year's worth of stories (especially when we averaged over 30 stories each week) to parse the good ones. One year I decided to keep a separate folder and drop any good news in there as the year went. As you can probably guess, I eventually stopped keeping up with this for lack of time, but before that happened I realized very quickly that we weren't going to be able to cover every single piece of good news that happened throughout the year. And by "very quickly" I mean "around February or March." In just a few months, the episode was bloating up to a crazy size that wouldn't be realistic, even for a special episode.

The human brain is wired to remember the bad more than the good. This is an evolutionary advantage because in the hunter-gatherer days, getting it wrong was way higher stakes than getting it right. We evolved to really remember if that plant made us sick because next time it may outright kill us. But like most evolutionary traits, this doesn't always serve us well in the modern era. These days, only remembering the bad can make us cynical and bitter. But it's crucial that we learn to recognize and celebrate the good things that happen in privacy. If we only ever focus on the bad, we soon lose hope and give up.

I try hard to make sure that when I talk about these more philosophical topics, I don't just offer vapid advice like "don't give up hope!" Instead, I try to give actionable takeaways. So in that spirit, here's some actionable steps I recommend we take to help ourselves take space to celebrate the little wins and keep up our spirits in the seemingly endless fight for privacy:

1. Build a sustainable rhythm. I've written about burnout in a previous blog post. There, I mentioned the idea of finding a rhythm that works for you. Everyone's rhythm is different. Some people need their weekends, some people just need a night on the town, some people need full-on vacations. But regardless of your rhythm, it's important to make time to relax and unwind. If you're burned out, you won't have the energy to be able to really devote yourself to the things that matter to you, be it privacy or other issues. I especially encourage you to find other hobbies you enjoy and make time for those as well, whether it be reading, video games, movies, gardening, you name it.
2. Join communities. It's very encouraging to know that you're not alone, and to be able to ask for help and feedback and learn from others. Getting plugged into communities of like-minded folks - be it online or IRL - can help you stay focused, energized, and be part of the aforementioned rhythm. Privacy Guides*, Techlore, and even Firewalls Don't Stop Dragons all have communities of other privacy enthusiasts you can join up with. (You can also become a paying subscriber to The New Oil and gain access to leaving comments on these posts for a bit of community here, too). It may even help to go find some IRL groups you can attend to find community in your area. I've had a surprising amount of success on Meetup.com here.
3. Keep perspective. As I said before, good things happen all the time but we're wired to remember the bad. Try to keep track of the good things that happen or even just appreciate the good tools and services that are helping us to secure our privacy now. This might be the form of a journal, bookmarking some "good news" videos from privacy creators, or pretty much anything else that you can look back to when the fight feels hopeless.

Many privacy advocates praised the show Andor back when season 1 came out. They cited how it really captured the frustration and exhaustion of fighting a long, drawn-out rebellion - like privacy, for example. Privacy is not a sprint in any sense of the word: you can't get your data taken off people search sites immediately or implement every privacy tool overnight. Cliche though it may be, privacy is instead closer to a marathon, and like a marathon that may sometimes entail getting some water, reminding yourself of how far you've come, and accepting the cheers of others to motivate you. Slowing down or taking a break is fine, as long as you keep moving forward.

*Full disclosure: I am currently a full-time employee of Privacy Guides, but of course even joining the forums at a free level is still a pretty vast level of community.

Tech changes fast, so be sure to check TheNewOil.org for the latest recommendations on tools, services, settings, and more. You can find our other content across the web here or support our work in a variety of ways here.