In this discussion post, I am going to explore uses of social media in the context of Panopticism. Drawing a comparison between anything and Panopticism has immediate and somewhat troublesome connotations for the object of comparison. First of all, Panopticism, as it was originally formulated, involved the surveillance of unwilling participants. However, in the digital age, participation in these “surveillance” programs are voluntary, and users participate because they receive some sort of personal convenience or benefit. Of course, this is ignoring government programs like the NSA, which is perhaps an even more appropriate object of comparison but will not be discussed in this post.
Instead, I am going to focus on the voluntary forfeiture of privacy that social media coerces out of the individual. What I find even more fascinating in today’s social climate is that many (perhaps most) use social media not to connect with old friends, but to persuade others of their self-worth. From what I can tell, the primary use of social media is ego gratification. I do not mean this in a Freudian sense, but instead, I am simply suggesting that the goal of many social media users is to convince followers or friends that they are living valuable lives. Although this is not inherently bad, it may be the case that in practice this detracts from the actual value of one’s life. I plan to expand upon this further in my final essay but will get back on topic for now.
Another connotation that Panopticism brings is that there is some group of people in power purposefully imprisoning their subordinates in the Panopticon. However, interestingly, this is not the case with social media. One of my main critiques of The Circle, besides its complete lack of subtlety, is what I believe is a complete mischaracterization of modern tech companies and capitalism as a whole. For a book that is so obvious and pointed in its criticisms, The Circle as a company seems much too unlikely. Instead, companies like Google and Facebook are driven, like all participants in capitalism, by money. It was advertisement revenue, not fringe ideology, which ultimately created the digital Panopticon. It just so happens that personal information has monetary value, whether companies literally sell the information or use it to increase revenue through other means, like by using the information to present more relevant content to the user, thus increasing time on site.
On the surface, collecting information in this way seems relatively harmless, especially compared to the power dynamic described in Discipline and Punish. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with using information to better cater content to the user, and at first glance, this seems like a mutually beneficial relationship. The collection of data is even made less sinister by the fact that the data is usually just being fed into algorithms and not actually seen on an individual level by human eyes.
One could go the route of The Circle and present a dystopian future in which these companies turn evil and begin to use this data against users. In fact, given the current political climate, the seizure of this information by the government to use to control citizens seems less ridiculous every day. However, a much more reasonable fear is simply that these companies will succeed in personalization of highest possible degree. If these algorithms become so sophisticated that they can find exactly the right content to present to you so that you will stay on their app, no matter the actual value that this content will bring you, it is easy to imagine a future where we spend all our free time looking at our own personal equivalent to cat videos. Additionally, if automation continues to expand at the rate it has been, our free time could soon be endless. Given the amount of data and money being funneled into the tech industry, this possible future may not be as far off as it seems.
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