I believe there must be sometimes when we feel we want to be apart from others or want to be left alone without being interrupted. We tend to keep quiet when we do not want to answer certain questions, for example a stranger is asking about your family.
Privacy is a central concept which is closely tied to personal space, territory and other social behavior. We must understand privacy well because it serves a larger purpose. It helps to design a better built environment. Irwin Altman defined privacy as "selective control over another's access to our physical body, our groups, or our environment" (Altman, 1975). His framework of privacy revolves on management of information about oneself and at the same time management of social interaction…show more content… It could be found in a group of people as Westin had pointed out that we may seek privacy with one or more selected persons (group privacy). This is why Altman's definition for privacy includes one's group. For example, a group of musicians are practicing for a competition in their studio, others are not allowed to enter the room without authorization as the musicians do not want to be disturbed.
THE MEASURING OF PRIVACY
According to Alan Westin (1967), he concluded that there are four faces of privacy:
1. Solitude. State of being alone and free from physical intrusion from others.
2. Intimacy. Group privacy, a state when a person is accompanied by someone else but they are free from physical intrusion from others. For example: lovers who want to be alone together.
3. Anonymity. A form of privacy when one wish to be in state of being among others but to be invisible and unknown to others, common example is celebrities who want to be among others but refuse to interact personally or to be identified by the public during an casual…show more content… Control. It offers freedom to us and allows us to do things we wish to do.
2. Emotional release. It enables us to express our emotions such as anger, anxiety and sadness.
3. Communication. It limits and regulates the interaction process with others.
4. Identity. It helps to build up our self-identity through self-evaluation when we are being alone.
Privacy is controlled through verbal, non-verbal, cognitive, environmental, temporal, and cultural mechanisms (Harris, Brown, & Werner, 1996). Together they are known as 'behavioral mechanisms'. 'Behavioral mechanisms' is practiced to facilitate the privacy regulation. Behavioral mechanisms is an important framework, operating when personal space and territory meet along with verbal/ non-verbal responses and cultural practices. In this framework, human beings will build up a certain privacy level which they are desiring. It's an indicator of openness during an interaction process they would wish for in a particular setting. This indicator would be ranged from the level of desired to interact with others (openness) to avoid excess interaction with others (closeness). The indicator may varying and changing based on one's desired privacy