If We Worry About Privacy, Why Do We Share So Much Online?

In the modern digital era, there could always be someone watching you.

Phones have had cameras for more than two decades, and with the rise of Instagram, TikTok, and live streaming platforms, everyday people are able to easily produce their own video content online. Public actions can be online in an instant. When people are already concerned about privacy infringements by governments and corporations, why do individuals contribute to the culture of surveillance?

Film & Media Studies Professor of the Practice Mat Rappaport teaches the course Online Video, which dives into algorithms, content creation, and social impact. He spoke with Tufts Now about why we have such a robust culture of posting online and what changing technologies mean for the future of social sharing. 

Why are people so comfortable filming themselves and others to post online?

There’s a social currency where social media systems are set up to validate engagement. The like button, the comments, the resharing and reposting, all hit the human brain in our dopamine systems. It’s like going to a casino: You see people putting in quarters over and over again. 

These platforms are simultaneously connecting us with lots of people while also encouraging us to create content about our lives, the things that we see, the places we go, the things that excite us. We socialize around that kind of sharing. It’s a way of staying in touch with people or pushing your own interests and networks. 

On the positive side, it’s really engaging for people. But on the negative side, there’s outrage and anger. On our social media feeds, the things that get a lot of engagement tend to be on one of those two axes.

Why do you think it’s become normalized to capture content wherever we go?

I think it’s cultural because in the U.S., we’ve been habituated to the fact that these devices exist, and people are constantly capturing their lives. Marketing has really pushed the idea that these are memory creation devices.

Using these technologies to be seen and heard is a very basic human impulse. It’s like getting on a box in the public square and yelling—that’s a technology. But with these new technologies, they’re just super scaled. 

It starts off as, great, I don’t have to carry a second device, my phone has a camera. Little by little, resolution goes up, you can store all your photos on the cloud, you have object and facial recognition. And embedded in photos is metadata. Now photos are a pictorial record of the things that you capture, but the camera is also capturing you as the photographer, because it knows where you are and when you are. 

What are the consequences of having extensive digital footprints, especially for young people who have documented much of their lives online?

I lean towards skepticism and criticality of these tools and platforms, because we use them like air. Especially for younger people, the iPad generation, who are interacting with an addictive system 24/7 that is actively trying to get you to do things. 

We see the consequence of this with public figures, where people will go back and find the one horrible tweet, or the one risqué post. There is a real persistence to these artifacts.

I empathize and think there are challenges to existing in this modern, surveilled, hyper-documented life that we’re all leading now. It poses challenges to being able to change and grow, to not being locked into who you were in the past as you move into a future.

Flock cameras, which are automated license plate reading systems, have been a hot topic lately, with some people pushing back against what they see as pervasive monitoring while others are unbothered. Do you think the “surveillance state” has desensitized people to a lack of privacy in our culture? 

Flock cameras are a piece of infrastructure that we see as somewhat colonizing our public spaces. It’s almost like this flag being planted in the ground that’s saying, “Hey, you’re being watched.”

It’s an interesting contrast to the fact that most of us have smartphones, which are recording and tracking devices, and we opt in all the time because of the convenience. But for some reason, that’s a less problematic device, because we’re also being fed the things we want, instead of speeding tickets. 

You think you’re making content for your friends, family, and your audience, but you’re really making it for the platform. The impulse to share stuff on Instagram is now being commodified by the platform, and then the platform is tuning engagement around audiences with certain interests and selling that to advertisers. They’re able to put messages in front of people to shift us behaviorally towards buying something or being sympathetic to a particular idea or cause.

What are the benefits of having video and content creation tools more accessible? 

It’s this weird moment we’re in, where we can all participate without having to necessarily be an expert. That doesn’t mean that there’s not a place for that expertise—but it’s upping the ante to stand out. 

If the barriers to entry to making things are lowered, I think it’s a net positive. We live in a world where we can all capture all of these amazing experiences. If we’re doing it authentically, that’s a beautiful thing.