Today, a different form of efficient design is eliminating “eyes on the street” — by replacing them with technological ones. The proliferation of neighborhood surveillance technologies such as Ring cameras and digital neighborhood-watch platforms and apps such as Nextdoor and Citizen have freed us from the constraints of having to be physically present to monitor our homes and streets.
When debates arise over the threat such technologies might pose to privacy, of both their users and the broader public, critics often focus on the power of large technology corporations to control our personal data.
But surveillance clearly provides benefits — and means of abuse — to far more people than Big Tech titans and law enforcement. These are wildly popular technologies among private citizens. We like to look at ourselves and to monitor others, and there are an increasing number of new technologies encouraging us to do just that.
This prompts some slightly different questions about the benefits and dangers of surveillance technologies: What kind of people are being formed in a world of everyday surveillance? What assumptions do they make about their neighbors and communities? What expectations do they have for privacy and visibility in their own homes and in their interactions with family members? How can they build relationships of trust without the reassurance surveillance offers of the behavior of others?
I’m not convinced that cameras and Nextdoor are having a material impact on the vague idea of “trust between neighbors,” but I admit it’s hard to gauge because I only have my own experience, which exists on a potentially wide spectrum.
I’m barely on Nextdoor and was surprised to hear there’s apparently a pretty common use of it for public shaming. The potential for petty community conflict does seem heightened by some of these technologies.
The few times I’ve gone on nextdoor it’s just a bunch of people asking for plumbers, contractor, ECT. It seems like the most mundane social media possible. But I’m in more of an urban area, maybe it’s worse in the suburbs.
Around here it is a lot of that, then add “Did you hear gunshots” Everytime a car backfires or fireworks go off even slightly out of season. Oh and a fuckton of hate for houseless people.