We’re living in an “Age of Surveillance Capitalism”. Whatever we’re doing is being observed minutely through our social media accounts. Each action is monitored, location is traced, the conversation is codified, and voices are recorded. We’ve got immersed in the black-hole of being ‘online’ to the extent that hardly are we aware of our physical surroundings. In such a ‘controlled environment’, it is crucial to understand the growing digitalization and its impact on the behavior of an individual and society as a whole.
Yuval Noah Harari in his renowned book, “Homo Deus” argues that the most important asset of the 21st century is ‘data’. In the past, land or natural resource used to carry huge importance, but now their worth is declining due to the shift of public interest in the internet. He says that today wars are not on the battleground of lands or borders, but on the social media platform. And whoever controls data will rule the world.
His arguments, on one hand, carry weight as we observe that in the post-pandemic world, the reliance on the internet has increased significantly. Even we establish our likeness or disliking in terms of social media trends. Marketing is getting virtual, social media influencers have a more dominant impact on the public than preachers or cunning politicians.
It’s not too difficult to imagine a futuristic life in the realms of virtual reality. But what would be the impact of such drastic changes o human life? The data of individuals would be manipulated in the hands of those who control data. Won’t it curtail individual freedom when we’ve nothing but limited choices to opt for? We’ll know what Google, Facebook, or Twitter tell us, and not the fact that we experience around us. For example, the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, Syria, or Palestine could have zero attention while a viral gesture of any social media celebrity would gain views.
The thing we must disagree upon with intellectuals like Harari is that they are presenting “Dataism” as an inevitable force where we’ve to accept the dominance of this ‘surveillance capitalism’ and have no right to resist. Why should one have to accept the terms and conditions of a virtual ‘totalitarian regime’ of social media? Why can’t we resist this encroachment?
The Internet has helped humanity a lot, but sheer ‘surveillance’ which could be used in the hands of corporate elites to govern the world according to their vested interest is a gross abuse of power. Democratic principles of ‘freedom’ must be intact and any attempt to curtail it would strongly be resisted.
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