The new default in the digital age is public. Our digital identity is public and recognizable. Private does not exist. He's disappeared from our lives. What conclusions can we draw from this new situation?
A word of caution to those of us who are interested in philosophy. Just as the intellectual concern of the enlightened philosophers has been solipsism, the fact that there is “nothing else” apart from one’s mind, our philosophical fear today is not to speak with our voice. That “I” does not exist is a worrying prospect, that my thoughts are not really mine, that my feelings are not really mine, etc. As the enlightened philosophers had the absolute certainty of the private sphere, they questioned the public sphere. Since we have absolute certainty about the existence of the public sphere in the digital environment, we wonder if the private sphere exists. It’s not an exact formulation but, well, it serves to give an approximate idea of the inversion.

The digital age has come and it’s here to stay. We have little to say about it. Therefore, the horror of the public nature of our activities does not make much sense. We're computer cubs and we can't be afraid to live among computers. Sooner or later we will have to accept the public nature of our digital activities.

Getting out of the digital environment doesn’t seem right to me either. At least I don't want to disconnect. I would stop being functional, especially in the professional and social fields. Quite simply, I don't want to take that loss up.

It seems to me that we will have to learn to live in this new environment where all our activities are public. Is that perspective so bad? Unfortunately, today it is.

I started by saying that private doesn't exist. That's not true. The flow of information follows the panopticon scheme. We have no privacy but those who have access to our information live in the dark. Those who are in the privileged point of view can see everything but we cannot see them. This asymmetry makes us prisoners because it turns the digital environment into a huge prison.

Perhaps instead of trying to escape social control, we should begin to demand that we all fall under control. Transparency in the activities of all, including those of the political and economic elites. Since the prisoners in the panopticon cannot see the guard, the guard is interned. But when the prisoners can see the guard, everything changes. By democratizing control on one level, freedom is restored.

Since the new default in the digital age is public, I am convinced that the minimum requirement is for the public to be universal.