Are we all gossips at heart? Why as people are we so concerned with other people's lives?
I am not sure if this is a new phenomenon or not, but I think it has become increasingly more prevalent for people to want to know everything about everyone. If you consider that when Franklin Delanor Roosevelt was in enough the American public did not know that he was in a wheel chair because the press did not feel it was relevant to his administration it does make one think that this is a new trend. Now we as Americans appear to have a desire to know everything about our public officials, television stars, movie actors, musicians, neighbors, friends, family, and strangers. Where does it all end?
There are laws regarding privacy, but why should we need the government to tell us to mind our own business. There are many exhibitionists out there who may be willing to sign their lives away for money, but just because you decide to be in the public eye I don't believe that means everyone has a right to know who you are dating, what kind of underwear you wear, what you buy at the grocery store or any tidbit of information you have not directly chosen to share with others.
I think that the government has gone as far as it can in regards to enacted legislation regarding privacy, and so we as a society need to take a look at what drives our need to know. Can people not find enough interest in their own lives? If your own life is so boring and monotonous that you need to live vicariously through others I think instead of buying another tabloid, reading another unauthorized biography or viewing another illegally sold sex tape you need to make some changes in your own life.
