There\u2019s much more to privacy than just a random individual luxury: if you don\u2019t have privacy growing up, you can\u2019t even form your identity.<\/p>\n
Growing up and forming an identity is a process of testing boundaries and finding a zone of comfort \u2013 one that tells us who we are. This requires the ability to tell people things in confidence, to see if we\u2019re comfortable with them \u2013 and see how the people around us react to what we say or do. The presence of this ability ultimately determines our ability to shape an identity \u2013 or, absent the ability, conform to the gray mass.<\/p>\n
This is not just observed in humans, but in all 250+ species of primates: children copy their parents up until adolescence, then rebel and do almost the opposite from the behavior parents had (\u201cteenage years\u201d), then settling on something in-between. This is a process that, for lack of a better word, requires privacy: privacy from parents, privacy with peers, privacy for oneself to figure things out.<\/p>\n