The instinct to pour scorn on attention seekers may be masking a deeper public-health problem: chronic concealment. For much of my career as an academic I made a living scolding people about privacy. I lectured on digital hygiene, warned audiences about the ways social media amplifies folly, and played the role of the wary scientist: don't put your passwords in a document, don't take quizzes that leak your intimate preferences, don't broadcast things you can't take back.
People insist that privacy matters to them, expressing a strong desire to protect their personal data. Yet they readily share information, either for the sake of convenience or in exchange for a minimal reward. Their words seem to belie their actions. But there's a reason for this contradiction. It's not that people don't care about their privacy; it's that the systems designed to protect them are so convoluted and abstract they'd make Rube Goldberg blush.