I’m being interviewed for a documentary on life in the digital world.

BBC Radio 4’s The Digital Human studies and reports on and does documentaries on how we behave in this new kind of world, a subject I write about often on my blog.

“I am getting in touch as I am  recording a Digital Human episode about territory and personal space in the digital world,” wrote Kate Bissell, a Scottish journalist. “I read  your blog post talking about  your own experiences of this issue in your article “New Boundaries: Social media, the Violation of Personal Space and Creativity,” and would love to speak to you for this program.”

I like the BBC very much – there is little of the screaming and hate-mongering that is the hallmark of most American mass media, you can actually talk .

I agreed to talk with  Bissell, who is the producer of The Digital Human, a thoughtful and intelligent series of articles on life online. We’re going to speak tomorrow afternoon.

I’ve believed for a long time that the digital space has virtually destroyed the idea of personal space, something that was once sacred in our own culture and which is believed by many psychologists  to be essential to mental health and dignity and peace of mind.

I so often feel invaded and  intruded upon online, it used to make me angry, and I railed about it, and learned that the people who do it consider it a right, even a moral obligation.

There is no point in talking with them about it. I’ve been called a thug, a monster, a scumbag and an asshole online more times than I could possibly count. The very idea of a personal space was obliterated some years ago.

Personal space is the area immediately surrounding an individual, says the website wisegeek.com. Traditionally, this is a space we protect and defend. In the digital world, it is just a boundary to obliterate, it doesn’t exist in the age of the instant message or text of hyper-video.

“Personal space is sometimes described as an imaginary “bubble.” Most people are very aware of others in “their space,” and many require the area to remain relatively clear in order to feel at ease. The idea of personal space is rooted in psychology and there are many theories about how the space develops and how people react to violations. Some of this is based on genetics and brain chemistry, but a lot is also cultural.”

Personal space is also related to privacy, safety, the ways in which conflict is processed, and our own sense of individuality and identity. There is no personal space online, unless we completely disconnect ourselves from the very technology we have become absolutely dependent on. The young don’t even grasp the concept, their sense of privacy and space was stolen from them by greedy entrepeneurs, the bane of capitalism.

For years, I found myself quarreling online about people who enter this space, intrude upon my thought process, challenge my ideas seconds after I have expressed them, distorted my beliefs, and assaulted me with insensitive, rude or hostile comments or questions.

People are no longer responsible for the words they write or utter, legally or morally. Anybody can say anything about anybody in seconds, without any barriers or boundaries or accountability. When challenged, they are often outraged. How dare anyone talk back?

I often feel assaulted online, feel that I have been invaded, feel that my ideas and thoughts are challenged in aggressive ways without much thought or consideration.

I’ve learned to deal with this, because the digital human – if he is a writer or artist or simply alive  – needs to interact with the world. I could no longer survive if I disconnected from the digital universe, I am now dependent it on it, like most people in America.

And because I believe so strongly in the promise of interactivity, and the potential of the digital community, I think it is worth fighting for the idea of individual space and boundaries. Otherwise the digital world will eat us alive, as it has begun doing.

But it has been difficult for me, as many of you have seen and witnessed.  It’s required a lot of thought and patience to sort it out. And a lot of anger and confusion.

I started a Creative Group some years ago to fulfill a lifelong fascination with the idea of a digital community. Within months, I was up to my neck in back-stabbing, politicking, boundary violations, betrayals, cliques and outrage. I’m sure much of it was my own fault. Online, people are people, only worse.

I have firsthand experience of the benefits of the Digital Human, I love my blog, sharing my creativity and pictures, and earning a living by writing what I want. I have made some of the best friends of my life online, and found a supportive community without quite knowing it. The Internet makes my current life and values – and work with the Army Of Good – possible.

I send my photos out into the world, free of charge, this is a miracle to me.

These are profound benefits.

But I also feel something important has been lost in my life. My space, my personal space, the sphere that once encircled me.

I have lost the security and dignity of this space, of much of my privacy, of my ability to project ideas without their instantly being corrected, challenged, disagreed with. Ideas can barely breathe online, they are most often stillborn, smothered in hostility, polarization and labeling,  and falsehoods, the  bane of instant communications.

This is not a world where people learn to listen to one another, rather they learn to be outraged and anger before an idea leaves the womb. It is culture of grievance and outrage, of falsehoods and brutish attacks on the weak and the timid. There are so many voices to listen to, that there are no voices to listen to.

I struggle with people who confuse reading my blog with knowing me, and who have learned online to hate people who disagree with them, or are different from them.

I never say anything online that I wouldn’t say to someone in my own living room.

That is an antiquated and outdated convention.

So many people are not so constrained. Courtesy, listening, civility – all issues relating to our personal space – are being shattered and obliterated online. Nobody has to listen, no one need be courteous, civility is becoming silly and rare.

Creativity is smothered by the instant message, no creation can live long in the digital space. Thoreau would have hung himself from one of his precious trees had he been on Facebook during his time at Walden Pond. There is no idea that is safe from being challenged, from outraging someone, or dissected before it can breathe.

I’m excited to be exploring these issues on so thoughtful a place as BBC and the Digital Human. I’m curious to see how the discussion goes.

I am still working hard to understand how best to navigate life in the digital world. I am committed to it, and I doubt I will ever leave it. But that doesn’t mean I know how to live with it.