Voluntary Surveillance

 I was fascinated by the discussions we were having in class on Thursday surrounding
surveillance. Specifically, the dimension of surveillance that I believe is unique to
the era of the internet; voluntarily subjecting yourself to surveillance.
 This takes a couple different forms, some pushing the definition of "voluntary." For example,
my father still keeps insisting on using Amazon Echo devices despite being entirely
aware of the alarming privacy violations inherent with those devices. This is a legally-sound,
ethically-questionable application of voluntary surveillance, with usually the same level
of genuine informed consent as the average person who clicks "I have read the Terms of Use."
 What I am more interested in isn't really this faustian "your data for our service" situation
that most tech corporations subject their customers to, it's the more self-imposed version
of voluntary surveillance that you can find on nearly every social platform.
Of course, this attitude is in the best interests of those social media corporations, and
it is eagerly fostered.
 A willingness to constantly be allowing people to observe you comes with the implied
consequence of fame. And frequently, with persistence, people who subject themselves to
constant surveillance find immense success; the more deeply you allow people into your
life, the more reason they feel there is to stay.
 An intense version of this is the 24-hour live stream. While it's unusual (but not unheard of)
to open up your life to strangers completely, it's much more common to see fragments of someone's
life; a picturesque view through a window, or a view of interesting animals; these constant
mild invasions into strangers' lives is something we've generally come to have taken for
granted.