Ring camera security video as entertainment

Ring customers with home security cameras are now content providers. Ring, now owned by Amazon, shares the “best” surveillance video of their customers on their website tv.ring.com. Sharing safety videos isn’t new. TikTok videos with the hashtag #RingDoorbell have more than 2.5 billion views.

However, starting in the fall of 2022, these fisheye videos will have a new and larger distribution channel – TV shows, called Ring Country. It was made by MGM, another bought by Amazon, and hosted by Wanda Sykes. I don’t know what worries me most; the fact that the show is being made or that people will watch it. Surveillance as entertainment. What could go wrong?

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Using Ring webcam video in TV shows is a smart move Marketing Relocated by the company. It challenges existing social norms about security surveillance by classifying it as entertainment. What used to be aggressive and creepy is now not only socially acceptable, it’s also very entertaining. Despite academic evidence that widespread surveillance leads to greater public acceptance despite growing threats to privacy, autonomy, and civil liberties, researchers have yet to study the effects of surveillance as entertainment.

Lower price and easy installation feature lowers barriers to use use Home-level video surveillance equipment. Some argue that doorbell cameras outnumber those used by the government — and Sheng et al. (2021) A report from the Stanford Policy Lab says there are more than 100,000 outdoor surveillance cameras in New York City alone.

Surveillance costs still keep video surveillance out of reach for many, which may explain the less than 50 percent adoption rate at home. However, parent companies like Amazon and Google are further changing social norms and increasing acceptance by positioning video surveillance as part of the smart home.Large companies like this may also increase legitimacy and trust – especially if you’re not concerned about your personal data causing artificial intelligence algorithm. The “Amazon Effect” also takes the surveillance device out of a special item and turns it into a household item that can be purchased with a single click and arrive within a day or two via Prime Shipping.

Video platforms such as YouTube and TikTok have standardized short video content as entertainment. The meteoric rise of TikTok and the swift actions of Instagram and Snap to offer similar features reflect the ability of video to convey deeper, richer and broader information – every video message contains context and visual cues, from annotations to body language, cues– all in response to time spent in text or still images.

According to data published by Kastle Systems (2017), the acceptance of smart home security cameras is inversely proportional to age: the younger you are, the more likely you are to install a video surveillance camera. This makes sense because younger generations are more likely to adopt new technologies because they don’t have to “forget” the old way of doing things. Gen Z and millennials are growing up with increasingly easy access to video content, the ability to create and share media for free, and through Instagram and TikTok.

Surveillance is not just about catching criminal activity.Pet cameras and baby cameras monitor babies, children and pet and relieve anxiety Not to be present in person. The use of these cameras reflects some very basic psychological motivations: to provide care and safety to loved ones.

Normalizing surveillance cameras allows people to indulge their desire to observe others. It’s not as creepy as it sounds. Humans are inherently social.Social Neuroscience It has been shown that our social consciousness is the “default operating system” of our brain. Social monitoring is how we learn to navigate the social world. Our mental and physical survival has always depended on our ability to relate, collaborate and connect.Observing the unsuspecting moments of others is a temptation, and unless we ourselves have experienced being watched, we are likely to assume third person biaswhere surveillance is one of the things that affects others more than it does us.

Surveillance cameras most directly address our need for safety and desire to remove uncertainty. From an evolutionary perspective, security comes from information. It’s important to know when saber-toothed tigers come to town.Information still adds a sense of security, which can be derived from crime Monitor applications like Citizen. Because the brain cannot distinguish between real and virtual very effectively, the data is rich and complex, especially for emotionally charged content. Environmental uncertainty (political tensions, social unrest, pandemics, school shootings) amplifies our need for safety, which increases the appeal of surveillance but skews our consumption toward threats. As Mean World Syndrome suggests, consuming negative content can make you think the world is scarier than it is.

The “entertainment” of surveillance video is precisely the need for safety and our curiosity about others, especially if we can understand how others respond to threats.If it’s shown as “realistic” entertainment, it can also allay any doubts or guiltywe don’t have to think.

Video surveillance poses considerable risks to privacy. In addition to the ability to hack into secure networks, surveillance companies have access to these videos and thus government entities as well. The use of surveillance video for entertainment is a gimmick that upends civil liberties by redefining activity as normal and fun through psychological manipulation.

TV.ring.com has a montage called Dog Takedowns, Bird Chase, Donut Squirrel & Trick Shots. Ring has permission to use the videos, as evidenced by the adorable cameo photos of the enthusiastic owners. This creates another layer of normalization—social proof—the visible support of others. Therefore, viewers are attracted by the social acceptance and entertainment value of video surveillance without asking any tough questions. Viewers are fully prepared for the inherent information in the video below the interesting content. These are marked as crime prevention and show evidence of the value of surveillance to protecting homeowners. When we’re having fun and immersing ourselves in dozens of first-hand narratives, our cognitive resistance drops and we don’t ask tough questions.

We cannot rely on Amazon to protect our rights. However, as consumers, we can demand transparency and accountability from surveillance companies. We can also ensure that our schools add media literacy to the ones they currently teach. Technology changes quickly. Without critical thinking, people tend to become passive. From crime deterrence to monitoring incidents, from police cameras to baby cameras, surveillance cameras undoubtedly have benefits. However, I worry that when we start to see security cameras and surveillance video as entertainment, we will mistakenly think that we are no longer asking these tough questions.