Surveillance

Technology has never made a good impression on me. I have never trusted it and its black box nature has only fueled my fear of the unknown. As a result, my friends often paint me as nihilist, having a bleak outlook on the future. It may be true. The average 20-year-old does not fixate on the potential destruction of technology.

However, the truth is, the amount of personal information media companies has amassed over the years should alarm not only Gen Z but also every citizen living in the digital age. Surveillance capitalism is threatening human autonomy and has imposed on our lives through mass collection of personal data.

I first joined Instagram​​ in 2016 as a 13-year-old teenager emerging into the early social media age. Before downloading the data, I had not registered how extensive the file would be considering its seven years’ worth of embarrassing posts and comments. Already skeptical, I was anxious about resurfacing the forgotten and when I finally opened the file, I realized that this was not the nostalgia evoking task I pictured. I hadn’t encountered the past. It confronted me.

The turbulence of my teenage years was representative of my data. Instagram noted every comment I had left and exactly when I had done it. I took no notice of it because I assumed that was how its algorithm worked. But when I delved deeper into the file, I became more alarmed. It had also registered every IP address of each log in/out along with time stamps. Instagram tracked my every movement and knew precisely where I was always located. However, this didn’t surprise me slightly; after all, isn’t Big Brother infallible and all powerful?

One scroll in and I stumbled across a message exchange between a close friend. It was five years ago and sent on 17th February. We had an argument before, but I had sent that message to check in and finished with a mundane conversation. That same friend passed away ten days later. After reading it, I quietly logged off.

I was forced to face the trauma and grief that haunts me still. To further think Instagram has their last words and can lawfully keep them disturbed me. *But by playing with our ignorance, Instagram simply knocked on the door. And I opened it with welcoming arms.

After I finished assessing the data, I reflected on not why but how. How could there be any good coming of this? The moments of life I have experienced were to be born in those pockets of time. But what’s the point when the permanence of Instagram and its data prevails? How is it possible to live in the present while being confronted with the past? Especially when the perpetrator is tracking your every move through the act of a click.

Ultimately, society should address technology’s omnipresent nature which facilitates companies to infringe our privacy. Why? Simply because who is stopping them?