So the Panopticon. The hypothetical prison that even people in the 1800s thought would be a human rights violation to build because it was such an extreme form of psychological torture.
Well, we already experience that psychological torture. After 2002/2003, and then especially after 2012, this concept has already burdened our everyday behavior. Browsing behavior, phone calls, texts, emails…every single way we communicate, even face to face meetings with phones in our pockets are open to surveillance. And it’s been shown that it’s been used. Over a decade ago, thanks to Snowden. Now? Things have surely gotten worse and I would bet the farm on behavior very much having changed due these facts.
And not for the better. I think people are actually much less kind to each other when they are aware of being observed. Or worse, deliberately performing for content.
So the Panopticon. The hypothetical prison that even people in the 1800s thought would be a human rights violation to build because it was such an extreme form of psychological torture.
Well, we already experience that psychological torture. After 2002/2003, and then especially after 2012, this concept has already burdened our everyday behavior. Browsing behavior, phone calls, texts, emails…every single way we communicate, even face to face meetings with phones in our pockets are open to surveillance. And it’s been shown that it’s been used. Over a decade ago, thanks to Snowden. Now? Things have surely gotten worse and I would bet the farm on behavior very much having changed due these facts.
And not for the better. I think people are actually much less kind to each other when they are aware of being observed. Or worse, deliberately performing for content.
Yeah, another factor I didn’t even mention. The voluntary surveillance.
Clarissa-Jan Lim wrote a great article which called it ‘Panopticontent’. That phrase lives in my head forever now.