Personal life is the course of an individual's life, especially when viewed as the sum of personal choices contributing to one's personal identity.In ancient past, most people's time was limited by the need to meet necessities such as food and shelter and there was not much leisure time. People identified with their social role in their community, and engaged in jobs based on necessity rather than personal choice. Privacy in such communities was rare.
The modern conception of personal life is an offshoot of modern Western society. A modern person tends to distinguish one's work from one's personal life. It is a person's choices and preferences outside work that define personal life, including one's choice of hobbies, cultural interests, manner of dress, and so on. In particular, what activities one engages in during leisure-time defines a person's personal life. For instance, a typical American has about five hours of leisure time per day, more than half of which is spent on watching TV.
People in Western countries, such as the United States, tend to value privacy. Privacy includes both information privacy and decisional privacy; people expect to be left alone with respect to intimate details of their life and they expect to be free from undue control by others.