Surveillance capitalism is collapsing the distinction between private and public life

Evidence

The difference is that Goffman assumed a backstage where you could be your true self. For us, the backstage is shrinking. There is almost no place left where I can be my true self. Even when I am walking by myself, and I think I am backstage, something happens—an ad appears on my phone or someone takes a photo, and, I discover that I am onstage, and everything changes. … The “everything” that changes is the sudden cognizance, part realization and part reminder, that Big Other knows no boundaries. Experience is seamlessly rendered across the once-reliable borders of the virtual and real worlds. This accrues to the immediate benefit of surveillance capital—“Welcome to McDonald’s!” “Buy this jacket!”—but any worldly experience can just as immediately be delivered to the hive: a post here, a photo there. Ubiquitous connection means that the audience is never far, and this fact brings all the pressures of the hive into the world and the body. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1504

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Erving Goffman’s frontstage/backstage dramaturgical theory, which the passage explicitly invokes. — connects to: The boundary between workplace and workforce surveillance is dissolving — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 229; Surveillance capitalism’s dangers exceed privacy and monopoly concerns — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 546; Surveillance capitalism converts everyday shared spaces into objects of commercial inspection — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 445 (+11 more)
• DEFINE: Clarifies Big Other’s boundarylessness via the shrinking of Goffman’s backstage.

Broader Connections

• Surveillance capitalism threatens human sovereignty over life and authorship of experience #expands (0.85) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1650
• Surveillance capitalism rests on extreme inequalities of knowledge and power #expands (0.80) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 45
• Surveillance capitalism constitutes a coup against the people disguised as personalization #expands (0.78) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1627
• Surveillance capitalism constitutes a privatized market-based collectivism #expands (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1603
• Surveillance capitalism feeds on the social transformations it causes #qualifies (0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1104
• Surveillance capitalism aims to author people rather than destroy them #expands (0.72) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 1062