Catherine Price took extraordinary steps to live anonymously for a week without becoming a hermit. It was, she found, impossible.

The degree to which modern technological conveniences make it possible to track our every move is often talked about but probably nonetheless underestimated. But the idea of a golden age of privacy lost is almost certainly a myth. While there was no Amazon or Google or OnStar or Tivo or Visa to track our every financial transaction until recently, we’re actually much more anonymous in many ways than our parents’ generation. It’s actually rare nowadays for me to walk into a store and encounter anyone that I actually know or who knows me; that wasn’t the case in the age of mom and pop retail.

via Andrew Sullivan