If we are being constantly watched, our actions in public, on the internet, what we watch, enjoy, and participate in, are our actions different from how we would truly act? We've been discussing the fact that with surveillance comes compliance. With the chance for sticking out and being labeled as a non-conformist or law breaker ever increasing in the current age of burgeoning constant surveillance.
My question is, at what point do we surpass the state of knowing we are being watched, and revert back to how we would normally act without constant surveillance? No doubt the change would occur, but there is no telling when. Today, the generation after us already willingly gives up information about themselves to the public without a care as to who sees it. We see this all the time on Facebook: people giving away personal life details about their whereabouts, grades in schools, personal political and religious beliefs, and anything else one would care to take the time to type. It is in this example that I fear we have already surpassed an important threshold that we lost sight of in the fervor of new technology and innovative social media.
We have become consumed by the capabilities of electronic media to the point that we are actively surveilling ourselves. Constantly revealing personal information just because we can, and as a result, those in control have a plethora of surveillance tools at their disposal.
It makes me wonder if different forms of surveillance actually does have any long-lasting impact on society. At a point when it was new, we saw resistance, but now it has become an engrained attribute of our society that is encouraged. I wonder if things will only progress from here, a society continually evolving to accept giving more and more personal information away.
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