Everyone is watched, and nobody cares. Digital platforms are fueled by the extraction of personal data, the surveillance of intimate lives and the prediction of behavior, and no one is moved by this singular state of affairs. This appears normal, a banal phenomenon which it would be ridiculous to oppose.
As soon as we approach this delicate subject, we are entitled to shrugs of the shoulders: “I have nothing to reproach myself for”, “And after? What is the problem ? », « Yes, it’s true, but we still have to see the good sides ». These avoidance reactions and these quick justifications reveal an attitude deeply rooted in the spirit of the time. The generalized indifference towards surveillance (of the digital giants, but also of the States and the objects that surround us) is in fact based on a particular form of subjectivity.
I hypothesize that the massive surveillance of our existence by digital technologies, in particular through smart phones and connected objects, is not only constraint, but desired. Although our moral conscience sometimes reminds us that it is important to protect our “privacy”, we secretly want to be monitored.
Algorithmic capitalism
Since the turn of the 2000s, there has been a profound change in capitalism, the power of which is increasingly based on its ability to extract an ever-increasing quantity of data and to train ever more efficient algorithms in order to anticipate our behavior. . Shoshana Zuboff popularized the phrase “surveillance capitalism » to talk about this new stage where capital accumulates thanks to a double imperative of extraction and prediction, consisting in monetizing our personal data in order to sell us targeted advertising and direct our conduct towards lucrative results. Authors such as Antoinette Rouvroy or Karen Yeung also speak of “algorithmic governmentality” to explain how algorithms can influence our beliefs and decisions through various automated systems bringing together recommendations, prescriptions, suggestions, nudges or verdicts without appeal. […]
The most striking aspect of our hyperconnected world where information overload is becoming the norm is the fact that attention is becoming a scarce commodity endowed with great value. The attention economy creates a new and vast market where self-exposure can be traded for the attention of others. As the artist Andy Warhol already prophesied in 1968: “In the future, everyone will be entitled to fifteen minutes of world fame. In the age of Instagram, YouTube and TikTok, anyone can aspire to be a celebrity for the duration of a sufficiently shared video.
Hypervisibility Society
This need for recognition or social approval is not new, and we can even hypothesize that it is an inescapable need of the human psyche. That said, the fact that our personal identity now passes through the mediation of recognition by any individuals connected to social media still brings a certain novelty on the psychological level. In the era of the disintegration of traditional communities, the breakdown of lifestyles, an explosion of possibilities in terms of identity choices and options for self-realization, the fact of seeing one’s identity recognized by others in a war of attention where everyone is constantly talking, expressing and exposing themselves brings its share of excitement, but also of anxiety and neurotic concerns. Everyone wants to be seen and heard. Especially among the younger generations, the fact of being visible and recognized through digital platforms and the staging of oneself becomes an existential issue, a vital psychic need. […]
Intersubjectivity, which is at the heart of the human experience, thus becomes captured by the platforms and machines that stimulate it and harness it in the field of the accumulation of data and the relentless training of algorithms. While algorithmic capitalism needs to function individuals enthusiastic about the idea of exposing themselves to generate maximum data, the culture of hypervisibility and the social character of the connected self are there to offer it on a platter of money a psyche ready to exploit.
The desire to be spied on, seen, examined, loved, recognized, shared, commented on (for good or bad) thus embodies a new form of subjectivity, that of the connected narcissistic self. Surveillance is no longer feared, it is sought, by a socially maintained and technologically solicited mimetic desire to be seen and recognized by everyone.
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