I am a normally paranoid individual, because I reason that my information is out for people to find, and while I might be subject to interpretation of that information—so what? I think surveillance is a big contributor to making people look bad and being falsely judged based on small pieces of information.  When I say falsely judged I am speaking of negative results as well as positive and even neutral results.Society tends to judge a person or thing solely based on the small or large amounts of data recorded about the person as opposed to finding out who they really are.

My purpose in this discussion is to say, that we believe that these are the best and most accurate ways of identifying how somebody will contribute in everyday life. Think back to the last time you were in a large city with mega-buses which have pictures of a man on-top of a women in erotic pleasure, your mind is now fixated on that image–what will you do with that image? We experience something and we immediately try to figure out a way to share this through Facebook or Twitter. The good characteristic is that we are more prone to stop and think about something we are experiencing or feeling and we carefully choose the right words to describe what we think about something. Now pan over to the left, or right depending on which side of the bus you saw it on–and you will probably think of one or two things–either condoms or a variant of lubrication–or more than likely, SEX. We are likely to post something less graphic than “K-Y advertisement on a bus in NYC!”, or “girls exact revenge due to unfulfilled sexual desires.”

Modern society has become a “comedy of commons” that is the Internet is an ever growing, usage-fertilized, insatiable plant. One of the biggest issues is the practice of surveillance upon people’s social network profiles. I believe that the accessibility of peoples information through photos and other content is leading businesses and corporations to  to their business’ success. Clearly now, Johnson & Johnson knows that you have seen the advertisement–and it’s beginning to work.

This has its good and bad characteristics.  It’s like a diary. Some say that writing down your feelings helps deal with what you are feeling and you can more effectively reflect upon your life. It forces you to ask yourself “how do I feel about this?” sometimes we don’t stop and ask ourselves things like this. Controvertibly, should we be worrying about what effect constant externalization of emotion may have on us? Mankind may be newer to so many emotions flying around constantly than you think.

Text, like emotion, is now a constant in every persons life.  It has become a need.Text (beside a spoken language) is the greatest invention driven by need to communicate.  Since the earliest days of man, a person didn’t need many things.  But there was always the need to communicate. It’s remarkable how something we aren’t even born with is so essential to our every day life. Surveillance, in order to gain accurate information on somebody or something, has as well. Nothing will last in our culture if it does not consist of any text, nor will it last unless it is surveyed. For a generation who shares and externalizes every thought and feeling, through text, companies have the ability to understand–to survey–our emotions. “The ease with which we can monitor each other and self-monitor our behavior accordingly resembles [a] particular aspect of Foucault’s panopticon on steroids.” (Perry, Ubiquitous Surveillance)

For my part, I am a little jaded—perhaps I don’t care, or perhaps, as my previous assertion holds, I have my secrets and they are safe in the world’s safest bank–the Internet–let them analyze. I have plenty of scatter patterns to confuse the machines and their results. When it all become asymptotic, undefined, uncatagorical, unreasonable, my emotions cannot be read; I know what is dangerous as well as what is trustable. After all, I’m a dog–don’t you trust me? Period.

Attribution

Sadie Wears Tin-Foil Hat originally uploaded by evilsciencechick
Original Sadie here

Perry’s Ubiquitous Surveillance