The eavesdropper in your drawing room!

Photo by Rohan G on Unsplash

Big Brother is real, albeit in an avatar more tailored to our world. Firstly, invasion to our privacy is happening with our own consent and secondly, it is not one Big Brother but many.

I know we all know it. Cameras are tracking our movements, tracing apps know of all the places we visit, video calls are (maybe) being watched. But we are not disconcerted enough to protest because we feel that our most precious secrets are still safe and privacy where it matters, still guarded. Or is it?

Few months back I borrowed a book which was about a certain philosophy. I was talking about it to a friend, overwhelmed as I was!

Lo and behold, I got a follow-suggestion on Facebook for a page which was about a life coach following the same philosophy principles. I felt a bit spooked since I did not interact with the internet on that topic at all. Still, my book-borrowing information reached someone. It is possible that I forgot about having searched for it on internet.

But the feeling of “someone” eavesdropping on our lives is quiet strong. That someone could be one of the many apps on our phone, or the TV, or the speaker that lies around like a creature waiting to come to life at our command. And all these “things” are interconnected to each other, capable of relaying information about us, back and forth.

Technically, this is “silent listening” and not eavesdropping because we have agreed to it in some form and even triggered this action. That long, cryptic, difficult to read contract form we signed and the hunger for more technology to purportedly better our lives has led us to host this invader.

I had experienced similar “invasive” moments at various other times also and here is what I think.

1. We all KNOW about this invasion.
2. And we blame it on the …… contract that allows permission to eavesdrop by ensconcing it in a play of words and presenting it as a harmless obligation that we ought to discharge.
3. Lets also confess, we are also just too lazy to go through the finer details and too tech-enthusiastic to care.
4. And then, doesn’t just everyone gives this permission? So, it FEELS okay to give this permission.
5. Then again, we don’t usually stop and reflect on how much of our privacy is compromised by way of all this CONSENT.
6. Maybe if we PAUSE and TAKE a STOCK, the gravity of it will dawn.
7. Demanding transparency where things are cryptic, safeguards where there is risk of being manipulated should be the way forward.
8. Also, technology-minimalism is always an option!
9. Since, isn’t minimalism anyways The Answer!

What are your thoughts?