Privacy crisis: what to do if we are being watched all the time?

How do digitalization and the pandemic affect our personal space?

Alexander Asmolov: Life is becoming less private and more public. There are cameras everywhere, QR codes are required when moving, social networks evaluate whether we have crossed the boundaries of what is permitted, and they can ban us without warning. At such moments, we feel spiritual nakedness, as in the song of Alexander Galich: “And here I am standing in front of you, as if naked.” And we perceive this as a violation of our own territory. And anyone who intrudes into it is perceived as a rapist.

The fact is that as soon as we delineate our private space, we begin to protect it.

Sometimes harshly, and sometimes gently guarding its boundaries. We tell others: “Do not look into my inner world. After all, this is my fortress, a characteristic of my uniqueness. Unique, intimate, personal, “only mine” refers to what is called a private territory in psychology. When our privacy is violated, it turns into severe injuries.

Boris Novoderzhkin: However, privacy is not good for everyone. Remember the stars of show business: they make a lot of efforts to be noticed and their talents to be replicated. Both nude photos and family scandals are used. For artists, politicians and other PR enthusiasts, publicity is important, not privacy. It helps to earn, to stay in the cage. Privacy is like Raskolnikov’s axe, they can chop wood, or you can use old pawnbrokers.

How does narrowing the privacy zone affect us?

Olesya Mikhailova: We have become very transparent and digitized. And in my opinion, for us there are more pluses than minuses in this. Living in the digital world is safe and convenient. How has reality changed? There is such a thing as “emigration without territorial displacement”. Once, in the 90s, we already emigrated without moving anywhere: we lived in the USSR, and woke up the next morning in different states. Now we have emigrated again, only this time to an electronic state – where everything is counted, entered into digital memory, everyone has their own ID number.

This is convenient: all data is stored in one place, on the State Services website. We can, without leaving home, apply for marriage, obtain rights, enroll a child in a circle, kindergarten or school.

Transparency has also become a plus in terms of security: cameras can easily identify and catch a criminal

But despite a certain security, we became very vulnerable, we were under attack. As in a cartoon about a goat that counted everyone, others “counted” us. We represent the state as a machine, but in fact they are also people. And any official, having access to information above the average level, can find out all our data.

AA: In my opinion, QR codes, movement control and the like are all symptoms of the emergence of Big Brother (remember the classic works of Evgeny Zamyatin and George Orwell). Such an invasion is a practice of depersonalization, depersonalization. Invading the territory of the personal world, where we feel like the main owners, we are subjected to severe trials.

The reaction to the invasion depends on the psychotype. There are individuals among us who act as the censor, the strong leader, says is the easiest for them to adapt. There are those who, by their psychotype, are not ready for such an invasion. They resist, build barriers and construct their worlds to help hide from invasion.

How to protect your “territory”?

AA: One way to fend off intrusions is what is happening here and now: we discuss the privacy crisis in the pages of a magazine. There is nothing more powerful for defeating an invasion than reflection. When we all communicate and analyze this problem together, we disavow it, expose it. We show that we can cope with it by resorting to the well-known formula: if you cannot change the situation, change your attitude towards it. How to do it?

We know that information about us, personal data are collected on administrative sites, taken into account. Our location can be tracked. But we can continue to live a fulfilling life: work, be creative, communicate with loved ones, support them. Irony as a powerful coping mechanism can be a response to attempts at intrusion.

What a totalitarian culture fears most is ridicule for what it does.

Do not grab a gun, do not grab a stick, but remember the wonderful fairy tale “Little Raccoon” with the great rules of psychotherapy. Little Raccoon saw that someone terrible was looking at him from the pond. Then he grabbed a stick and threatened the one sitting in the pond, and he became even more terrible. A raccoon mother came to the rescue, she said: “Do not threaten with a stick, do not make faces, but smile at the one who is sitting in the pond.” Smile therapy is one strategy that can help you cope with the situation.

BN: However, during a pandemic, we must clearly understand that everyone who has not been vaccinated, has not been quarantined after arriving from another country, becomes a biological weapon. QR codes and PCR tests help keep you healthy. Using codes, we understand that with their help the state monitors our movement, communications, and we agree to this for the sake of our own health.

But, on the other hand, screws are being tightened under this case in many countries – not only in Russia

This leads to protests, to a kind of regression into adolescence: we are looking for a parent with whom we will fight. In a new situation, in a state of uncertainty, we need someone or something with whom we can compete, on whom we can project our fear. Therefore, each time you have to return yourself to an adult state in order to assess whether the enemy is real.

Why do conspiracy theories, conspiracy theories appear?

O.M.: We love to be scared. As a child, we love to listen and tell scary bedtime stories, and as adults we watch horror films. This is how we gain access to our fears, which we are not even aware of. Thanks to fantastic images, fear from the unconscious manifests itself in consciousness, and then it seems to us that we are in control of the situation and can resist it.

If someone believes that 5G towers are spreading the coronavirus, they can put on a tinfoil hat. If he is convinced that his own smartphone is watching him, then he seals the camera. Like in a horror movie: when a ghost or a villain armed to the teeth comes out of the darkness, it immediately becomes clear what to do with it. In which direction to run and what tools to take with you: silver bullets, a spell or a bazooka. Conspiracy theories are an attempt to deal with your fears.

AA: Belief in conspiracy theories is inherent in the consciousness of a fanatical society. If someone decides everything for me, restricts my actions, forbids self-expression, then everything that happens to me is like an alcoholic fever: “enemies, enemies, enemies are all around.” It becomes easier for some when they think that the coronavirus was invented by enemies or that bats have taken up arms against us, as in fairy tales, to take revenge on the human race.

In the Middle Ages, during a plague epidemic, witches were burned, they were considered carriers of the plague. Any conspiracy theory is a continuation of the eternal witch-hunt situation. It has a direct bearing on the paralysis of our sensitivity to the other. Any other, unlike, unearthly and strange is destroyed.

Conspiracy theories are the destruction of the unpredictable, complex world that is around. Dinosaurs died out because they didn’t have a sensitivity to diversity. Those who carry conspiracy theories in their minds boldly embark on the evolutionary path that dinosaurs have already gone to nowhere.

What can we do to maintain common sense in troubling situations?

BN: First of all, recognize the reality: there are limits in life. Thousands of cameras are watching us, websites and social networks collect information about us, the state controls the movement and introduces new restrictions. We cannot avoid it. But understanding our inner freedom will help us not to follow the path trodden by dinosaurs.

We can use external constraints to open up new areas of freedom that we have not seen before. Now that we spend more time online, instead of walking on the street, explore your world. Surely you have noticed that you have much more opportunities than you initially thought when everyone was sent to a remote location.

You may have already found something else: rebuilt connections with friends, started studying online

Go this way. There will always be restrictions. With age, there are restrictions dictated by the body, the senses. But blind and deaf people do not become less free. There are much freer deaf-blind-mute than those who are sharp-sighted like an eagle. The degrees of freedom are limitless: look for new areas, notice new sides of the space of that freedom that no one will deprive you of.

O.M.: Our digitization really creates a feeling for many that everyone knows about us, we are being watched, and this greatly increases the degree of anxiety. Stability in the outside world is difficult to find, so now we can only seek salvation by relying on ourselves. It is worth considering what can become internal supports. I remember the books of Viktor Frankl, who survived the concentration camp, and his parting words to the reader – to develop the strength of mind. Viktor Frankl said that yes, I am now as enslaved as possible, but I choose whether to smile or not, to help another or not. We still have the freedom of choice. And even if it is minimal, we can rely on it.

Where to start to find inner freedom?

AA: To be internally free helps the strategy of building perspectives. After all, the main sign of a pernicious invasion of our private territory is the collapse of prospects. We feel confused, do not see the future and do not know how to build it. To support ourselves, we can define our goals. Start small: set goals for a certain period (for example, for a year, six months, a month) and outline the prospects. It can be a plan for the development of a working project, trips to historically significant places and the study of artifacts, cooking new dishes in your own kitchen. Admire the variety of options that life gives us.

As soon as you start designing new worlds, see alternatives, understand that this is your choice, you will not be afraid of either QR codes or other restrictions. If we know where the reefs are, then we can build optimal navigation to overcome obstacles. Each of us becomes a skipper, navigating safely between invading reefs and reconfiguring navigation when required.