I think we might be changing. Inside. In the noggin. From one sort of beast into another.

Do you remember the first time you read a “status update”? Pre-Facebook, most likely. On a blog, maybe, or the celebrated, neglected Friends Reunited. Probably it said something like: “Maggie is going swimming.”

“So?” you may have thought. “What do I care that Maggie is going swimming? Who the hell is Maggie, anyway? A friend's cousin? A cousin's friend? I only added her to see the rest of her profile photo, because the top half suggested she might be naked. And now she thinks I care about her stupid swimming? Jeez. Talk about ego.”

That was then. Over time, I think, our thoughts have changed. Imagine you logged on now, and saw that same status, unchanged. “Still?” you would think. “Maggie is still swimming? What, has she drowned? I just don't believe it. Nah. No way is Maggie swimming. She's doing something else. She just doesn't want us to know. The selfish bitch.”

We used to be a private ape. I wonder if we are becoming a public one. Have you read, over the past few days, about the Civil Serf blogger? She was a mid-ranking civil servant, secretly blogging from her desk. Not thrilling to everybody, but diverting enough to anyone with an appalled interest in the stifling chaos of central government. I used to read it a couple of times a week. And now it is gone. Some Sunday newspapers got hold of it, a witch-hunt kicked off, and it disappeared. And that feels wildly unfair.

Not to her. To me. I want to know what happens next. She wrote about seven- hour meetings, and how useless Peter Hain was. I read it all. I felt involved. Now, she must be sitting at her desk, wincing whenever the phone rings. She is the secret hub of a media storm. Has she confessed? Do her bosses suspect? Is everybody around her going utterly nuts? This would be stuff worth reading.

It makes me think of The Truman Show, that film from 1998 that was so fantastic, and forward-looking, despite staring Jim Carrey. Did you see it? Do you remember how it ends? Truman, who has spent his life unwittingly starring in a reality show, finally breaks out of his enormous, fake world TV studio. His sailboat skims across a fake indoor sea, and hits a wall painted with sky. He cries. Then he finds a door, and steps through. And that's it. The really juicy stuff is just about to happen, but there aren't any more cameras. That's the point. It's over.

It jarred then, and jars more today. In half a century, I suspect, we'll find it terrifying. We are growing unused to stories that end. In a world where so many choose to make their lives public, we feel increasingly baffled, derailed and, frankly, freaked out when somebody suddenly chooses not to. Despite myself, I find I resent that civil service blogger for ducking back below the parapet, just when things got interesting. Isn't that awful? But I bet I'm not the only one. Status update: Hugo is concerned.

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