On the contrary, you could go always off on your own and use any tools you could get your hands on to do private acts, think private thoughts (including writing/drawing them out physically), and make private art. That is increasingly difficult in a world where every tool you can get your hands on is designed to spy on you as a primary function.
Recently I've favored Privacy as a Right. Seeing what someone is doing is only part of it, imo. What about the thoughts in your head? Is it a privacy issue to try to extract your thoughts? Yes. There is a moral right to privacy. It's part of what makes us humans and promotes humankind, as we know it.
I think there's some evidence, take the old saying "three can keep a secret if two are dead" or it's variations. Even the Bible warns about how easily things get spread around.
But the Internet and communications moving to online text, etc, greatly increases the provability of the gossip, if you will. Which is a major change that we as a society haven't really adapted to. We treat "private" or "direct" chats as like talking in a cornfield; but before you just had a he said/she said situation, now someone can "drop receipts" or you can have whatever platform you're on hacked and everything spilled.
>the old saying "three can keep a secret if two are dead" or it's variations
I was reminded of this just a few weeks ago. Told a few people some news I told them was non-public given I was seeing them in person. Wouldn't you know it, it immediately got up to someone I'd just as soon not have known. Wasn't really a big deal but still annoying.
Common sense? Lived experience? No privacy is probably an overstatement (as absolute statements tend to be). But my experience having gone to university and living with a group of people was that you tended to learn a lot about other people's lives. And that's almost certainly more privacy than in a tribe.