Our Desk | Social network sharing – How much is too much?

Renato Marques

To start, I would say that we definitely live in era in which the world has turned “voyeuristic”. We photograph and film pretty much everything in our lives (that’s fine) but most recently, we turned this (almost) obsession to report everything we do into something far more serious, because we decided that it was OK to disclose our lives to the world. And I really mean it when I say to the world.

Recorded and Live functions of your favorite social network platforms have become a habit and we have started to “vlog” pretty much everything in our lives, from social events to our lunch or even that paper cut that we sustained in the office while using the copy machine. They all become relevant in our lives and “the world needs to know about this”, so all things become shareable.

Recently, two situations made me seriously think about this issue. The first occurred when I was having a quick bite at a restaurant in town. After a few minutes, I noticed that a group of people at the table beside me were doing a “Live Broadcast” of their lunch, and of everyone else in the restaurant having their lunch too, on Facebook. Then I started to think, “who in the world might be interested in a group of people seated at a restaurant table eating?” Because that was all it was about. Not a party, not a special celebration, not a birthday or something, it was just regular people eating chicken drumsticks.

The second incident happened when I was at home and about to go to sleep, I took one last glance at my Facebook account (like it might vanish forever overnight) and a window popped up with another of the “Live Streams” that I usually don’t take more than 0.5 second to swipe through. But this time I didn’t. I decided to look at it long enough to realize that it was a broadcast from a famous local night club. And guess what, it was “Ladies’ Night.”

A bit more seriously, I’m not sure if I was more impressed or shocked with the situation: a person (that I obviously know) was just wandering around the club with her mobile in hand, filming and broadcasting everything and everyone, from costumers to staff and security of the place. Then she pointed the phone at the dance floor and vanished from the screen, continuing to broadcast whatever was happening in the phone’s field of vision.

I reached the limit of my patience with that after 1:30 minutes.

Why? The question hovered in my mind and did not allow me to close my eyes for a long time.

And then I remembered the near-worldwide fever around TV programs like “Big Brother” (which I also never had the interest or patience to watch) that still exist in some countries, which of course means that they must have an audience. I also remembered those people on the TV who get paid to have their lives broadcast and exposed from the bed to the toilet.

More importantly, I would question – what gives us the right to broadcast the lives of others who just happened to be (unluckily) in the same place and time as those of us who livestream large parts of their lives?

Unfortunately, I don’t know the answer for this “condition” but I’m guessing this is probably why nobody seems to care about the growing surveillance everywhere. But that’s a story I’ll leave for next time.