The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: Micro Review

I came across Professor Shoshana Zuboff and reference to her work “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism” which watching the recently released Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma”. The documentary really piqued my interest due to personal and professional implications but also due to pure curiosity. It sparked quite a few topics for me to research and I thought I will start with this book.

I will say that I was not disappointed. This book was a revelation and a gem in expanding my horizon further on the digital growth that I have grown up with and contributed into.

Prof. Shoshana is a Harvard professor, social psychologist, philosopher, and scholar. And it shows in her work.

In the book, she starts by tracing the origins of the digital world to the macro sociopolitical factors, her definition of how the current situation can be attributed to our “individualization” as a society and how its a consequence of long-term processes of modernization where people have moved from the first modernity to the current third modernity.

She describes the rise of “surveillance capitalism” (a word she coined) as a result of this social reality combined with economic and political factors. As per Wikipedia:

Surveillance capitalism is an economic system centred around the commodification of personal data with the core purpose of profit-making. Since personal data can be commodified it has become one of the most valuable resources on earth. The concept of surveillance capitalism, as described by Shoshana Zuboff, arose as advertising companies, led by Google’s AdWords, saw the possibilities of using personal data to target consumers more precisely.

I will warn you that the book is disturbing. It obviously delves into the biggest players and beneficiaries of surveillance capitalism (Google and Facebook) and the practices they employ to thrive in this form of capitalism. And as you go in the book, you start to get uncomfortable, you want to throw away your phone, close your social media accounts and restrict your online activity (and then you realize that you have to also rip out your nest thermostat, Apple homepod, Alexa, Google Wifi and what not). I may not do any of that but I am glad that I read the book so that I am more aware. Still not sure what to do about that.

The book is long but it also delves into many original concepts on social implications of the digital world we live in today — ‘instrumentarian power’, ‘the division of learning in society’, ‘economies of action’, ‘the means of behavior modification’, ‘information civilization’, ‘computer-mediated work’, the ‘automate/informate’ dialectic, ‘abstraction of work’ and ‘individualization of consumption’.

There are so many nuggets in the book that will make you think — For example, you will also learn about click-wrap — the 5 zillion “I Agree” buttons you have clicked and how almost everyone (lawyers, lawmakers, judges and the companies themselves) agree that there is no meaningful consent.

It may be hard to NOT click on the next “I agree” button because there is no other choice if you visit a particular site or app. But awareness is the first line of defense. And that’s how we will make the change.

Though the tone of the book is little alarmist (and for good reason), I believe that the balancing forces will mitigate some of the harm that “surveillance capitalism” is causing. Unfortunately, for some, the “harm” may not be reversible.

Its a must read from my perspective.

Some chosen Excerpts:

“The first modernity suppressed the growth and expression of self in favor of collective solutions, but by the second modernity, “the self is all we have. The new sense of psychological sovereignty broke upon the world long before the internet appeared to amplify its claims. We learn through trial and error how to stitch together our lives. Nothing is given. Everything must be reviewed, renegotiated, and reconstructed on the terms that make sense to us: family, religion, sex, gender, morality, marriage, community, love, nature, social connections, political participation, career, food…”

The scientist thus make clear that they are willing — and that their inventions are able-to overcome the friction entailed in users’ decision right.

The idea was always that businesses could use their privileged grasp of reality to shape behavior towards maximizing business objectives.

Young people crave the hive, and facebook gives it to them, but this time it’s owned and operated by surveillance capital and scientifically engineered into a continuous spiral of escalating fusion, amplify fulfilling Shaffer’s five criteria for achieving an addictive state of compulsion.

…The result is alteration in “the balance of power between those holding the data and those who are subjects of that data”.

The convergence of freedom and knowledge transforms surveillance capitalists into society’s self-appointed master. From their high perch in the division of learning, a privileged priesthood of tuners rules the connected hive, cultivating it as a source of continuous raw-material supply.