We were never meant to be this invested in everyone else’s lives. As much as the digital age may have fostered connection, the societal expectation to constantly feed our lives to the digital space is eating away at any semblance of privacy we once had. Where social media once allowed us to stay updated on our friends’ lives, it now serves as a scoreboard for our interpersonal interactions. Where instant messaging once allowed for more convenient communication, it now pressures “bad texters” to constantly check their phones. And where location-tracking applications like Find My allowed us to locate lost devices, they now encourage us to constantly be observed by the people in our lives.
By recontextualizing datafication as connection, the technology industry is encouraging us to contribute to the constant monitoring of our lives that modern software allows, while falsely leading us to think that we are in control of how our information is shared. In this time, it is crucial to be aware of the sheer quantity of the data constantly being collected on us and how we may be normalizing such surveillance.
In 2018, about two weeks into my sister’s first semester in college, she called me asking me to share my location with her. When I asked her why, she responded: “I want to stalk you!” While I know she meant well—she had just moved across the country and wanted to stay updated on her 13-year-old sister’s misadventures—this marked the beginning of what had redefined digital social connection for me. In order to show someone they matter to us, we must let them in on every possible thing that could be happening in our life.
Find My is not the only example of surveillance repackaged as interest: On my own phone, I can see who my friends are interacting with monetarily through Venmo and what song they have listened to on repeat on Spotify. Numerous applications tracking some random aspect of daily life have circulated as trends, normalizing the idea that staying connected entails sharing even the most mundane events of our day.
One of the most pressing issues of this aspect of the digital era is the social pressure it puts on people to share. I myself have been criticized for frequently setting my phone to Do Not Disturb and have been asked on numerous occasions why I was at a certain location at a certain time. While in my life, these inquiries have come exclusively from a place of care, I know that not everybody is able to have the same level of autonomy. The societal pressure to constantly document our lives can warp consent and coerce people to offer their entire lives to an algorithm that runs on surveillance.
However, this issue is out of our hands. These software systems were designed so that data would constantly be collected on us—the popularization of social surveillance comes only from the allowance of access to a fraction of what is already being recorded. Giving us bits of data allows us to feel in control; it makes us think we have the power to document and share our information with whoever we want. But such information has already been collected, and allowing us to believe we can share it only on our own terms normalizes this constant collection.
By virtue of simply existing in the digital age, data will inevitably be collected on us. But we have become so eager to participate in digital trends that we rarely question the process behind how they can exist in the first place. The information lies buried in the fine print of terms and conditions documents, yet we cannot begin to comprehend the amount of clauses we may have missed or unintentionally agreed to. Being able to distribute online surveillance to our interpersonal circles seems to grant us a false sense of power. It is crucial to consider what systems allowed that power to manifest, and be aware of how we may be normalizing the use of technology to constantly monitor our lives.
The solution here is not to remove ourselves from these digital social systems. I have my location shared with 37 people on Find My and do not plan to change it anytime soon—I enjoy being able to share aspects of my life with my friends and personally do not mind if people know where I am. More than anything, I think that being able to share such personal things, like our location, allows us to think critically about how our information is being used and be conscious of how our behaviors may be shaped by the ever-present surveillance in technology.