Are You An Eavesdropper?

 September 20, 2010

Interview with John L. Locke, author of the book Eavesdropping: An Intimate History

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Mike Carruthers:
Eavesdropping, snooping - it’s considered bad social behavior but apparently it’s biologically wired into us.

John L. Locke:
Almost all living beings are aware of their surroundings and they need to be aware of things that the others in their surroundings don’t want them to know.

L. Locke, author of the book Eavesdropping...

We all need to access the subtle behaviors that others would like to keep hidden from us. If you think about the whisper, what possible purpose could a whisper have except to deny unwanted listeners access to the things we’re saying?

So we clearly have a natural curiosity to know what other people are up to. And it’s assumed women are bigger eavesdroppers than men.

I do think there is evidence that women pay far more attention to social relationships – they’re curious. But when it comes to keeping the neighborhood safe, I think you’ll find that men are probably the dominant eavesdroppers – they’re certainly the ones that would appear on the porch and stare at a stranger.

Today our desire to eavesdrop doesn’t serve the purpose it once did, but we continue to satisfy that desire with things like reality TV, celebrity news, even Facebook.

We upgrade our message and all of these media are all feeding the same biologically evolved appetite to enter into the lives of other people.
 

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here