 Readers of a certain vintage will remember a 1980s Motown hit by Rockwell, with backup vocals from the Jacksons, called Somebody’s Watching Me. The music video of that song is creepy, showing a young man stumbling around his house in fear, agitated by hidden cameras in stuffed animals, actors on television who appear to be watching him, and strangers popping up in his shower. What seemed like paranoia in the age of big hair, shoulder pads, and acid-washed jeans is increasingly commonplace in the third decade of the 21st century. In the People’s Republic of China, 1.4 billion people live under constant surveillance by networked facial recognition cameras, the monitoring of their social media posts, and the mapping of their contacts through texts and emails. Armed with this ocean of data, AI is ready to flag anyone who says or does something slightly at odds with the regime. Even in our democracy, about a dozen federal intelligence agencies buy and inspect the personal and geolocation data of Americans – exposing our private lives, beliefs, religious, and political practices – without resorting to the Fourth Amendment requirement for a warrant. The focus of this blog has long been on this breach of Americans’ constitutional rights, with all of its social and political implications for our democracy. But now a new study raises a different question – what does surveillance do to our brains? And what are the implications for public health? Suppose I told you not to turn around, but to just take my word that there is a man standing in the window behind you watching your every move. Does the feeling that thought engenders make your body stiffen? Does it make the skin on the back of your neck tingle? Is your every move suddenly self-conscious? Now imagine feeling this all the time. A report in SciTechDaily details the findings of an Australian professor of neuroscience, Kiley Seymour, on the effect of surveillance on the brain function of 54 participants in his experiment. “We know CCTV changes our behavior, and that’s the main driver for retailers and others wanting to deploy such technology to prevent unwanted behavior,” Seymour said. “However, we show it’s not only overt behavior that changes – our brain changes the way it processes information.” The study found that people who know they are being surveilled become hyperaware of faces, recognizing others faster than a control group. Though the study’s participants are unaware of it, they are jumpy, always on the lookout to categorize someone as benign or a potential threat. Seymour told SciTechDaily that his study found the same “hypersensitivity to eye gaze in mental health conditions like psychosis and social anxiety disorder where individuals hold irrational beliefs or preoccupations with the idea of being watched.” One can imagine how this might make people in China jittery and anxious. On the other hand, we doubt this effect is being generated in the United States by our government’s gathering and reviewing of our data, even when it exposes the most personal and intimate aspects of our lives. Many Americans are unaware of this breach of their privacy. And for those that are aware, that creepy feeling of being watched is probably not associated with the abstract idea of purchased data in a server somewhere. If so, this is a shame. The review of our data by the FBI, IRS, Department of Homeland Security, and other agencies should give you that creepy feeling, like that man standing behind you right now. Comments are closed.
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