Your indifference to Surveillance Capitalism matters

It’s what makes it so powerful

I used to be overly nonchalant when the subject of our phones listening to us was brought up. In a teenage attempt to sound cool, I would make some unfunny joke like “at least they know what I want,” or claim that I simply didn’t care. I would brush it off and continue my doom scrolling. 

But lately, things have been different. When I see a “friend” suggested to me on Facebook who I used to work with at the bagel store in high school but  never had any online interaction with, it doesn’t feel so funny anymore. It seeps so deeply into every aspect of my digital life, which is undeniably entangled with my real one, that not caring becomes impossible. Because that’s the thing about us not caring: it’s why Surveillance Capitalism is so powerful.

The subject has become a growing point of interest of mine ever since I entered university and  began to learn about Surveillance Capitalism. In high school, it felt convenient and fun when my phone suggested the same shoes to me that I had been wanting for a while. But that’s the thing: we are being offered convenience at the price of our personal data and identities. Trained behavioural psychologists know that convenience is appealing to us and the age of AI and its technologies makes our lives easier; in fact, these psychologists know a lot more about us than we think. The catch is that we know nothing about them, and we seem fine with that. Their awareness of our behaviour demonstrates their overwhelming power.

Surveillance Capitalism itself is a term coined by professor Shoshanna Zuboff, who proposes a terrifying truth in her 2019 seminal, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. In studying the surveillance practices of large conglomerates like Microsoft, Apple, Google and Meta (then Facebook), Zuboff concludes that these platforms have offered us a deal that we have passively, and even enthusiastically, accepted: they get personal data and we get convenience. They do not just collect this data to show us what we might like—if only it was that simple. Surveillance Capitalism is not intended to benefit us; instead, we are a tool in its game designed specifically to ensure we remain ignorant. This simplistic line of thinking is what many of us fall victim to when we say we ‘don’t care.’

While Google was the first major company to implement this strategy as early as 2001, a myriad of companies now collect and sell our data in order to influence and modify our behaviour by conducting extensive analyses on our emotionally weak or vulnerable points. Then, they use this information—our interests, insecurities and fixations—to get us to spend as much time as possible on their platforms. If the platform itself is free, it means that our attention is the form of currency, which we provide by watching advertisements or hours of influencers who are essentially advertisements themselves; hence the common term “attention economy.”

These platforms operate among an expansive and interconnected web of data showcasing your online activity. For instance, Instagram Reels knows that you’re insecure about your wardrobe. Your favourite influencer knows this too—it’s how she makes her living. The platform knows what your style is, what things you’re looking for, why you’re looking for them, how long you’ll look for them for, what times of day you look for them, and how long you spend looking for them; the list goes on. They know this because the platforms are specifically engineered to constantly collect your real, human data—meaning your habits—and sell them for profit to companies who want to find out how to get your attention, then your money. 

The formation of Meta might have been innovative, but it was intended to be a data gold-mine. It allowed for all the information that these companies have about us to be combined into a single, highly economically beneficial profile, utilised for the interests of one powerful robot-man. We know from his track record that this powerful robot-man is not interested in protecting your privacy. It’s important to remember that the influencer is never your friend, no matter how likeable they seem to be—they are supposed to be that way. The primary objective of every venture under capitalism is private economic gain at our expense.

It is no coincidence, then, when you’re shown hundreds of consecutive reels of clothing hauls or winter wardrobe “must-haves.” These won’t end until your online activity suggests that you’re now interested in something else such as the beauty industry or cooking. In favour of convenience, you ignore the feeling in the back of your mind telling you that this seems kind of creepy.

When we look into the ethical issues surrounding Surveillance Capitalism, ‘creepy’ becomes an understatement. It undermines the very essence of democracy, as the monetary incentives of this daunting business venture only continue to grow. It sneakily maneuvers under the democratic guise, as we technically are exercising our free will in using these platforms. But when the pervasiveness of social media becomes so all-encompassing that it becomes impossible as a young person to participate in society without it, the status of our free will becomes blurry.

Zuboff concludes that in order to move forward and begin breaking down some of these manipulative structures, we must solicit widespread change in public opinion. If we wish to strip these corporations of their seemingly absolute power, the first step is to be aware of it. 

After this, we might finally begin lobbying for the implementation of laws and regulations that are formulated in the interest of the public, rather than in private economic gain. Our first small, yet necessary, step is to become aware of these systems so as to not let them engulf us entirely. When I first began to understand the deceiving, intricate workings of Surveillance Capitalism, the price of convenience began to feel a lot higher than it used to be.