I’ve Been Thinking About My Doorbell

So I’ve been thinking about my doorbell.

No, really. We just got it. It’s the Ring doorbell:

My husband purchased this doorbell. It records 30 seconds of video every time it senses motion.

If you’re a Luddite, like me, you may be thinking, “Isn’t that kind of nosy for a doorbell? Isn’t a doorbell’s job description, like, the simplest job description on earth? We, the human race, could be curing cancer, but we spent that money developing this?”

So far, our Ring Doorbell has recorded:

• 18 visits by our mail carrier
• 36 trips to and from the school bus
• 15 visits by Amazon couriers delivering boxes (don’t judge, it’s the holidays)
• 157 times our next-door neighbor has walked from his side door to his driveway
• Our neighbor’s young adult son coming home at 2:30 AM
• A low-flying finch
• Me yelling at the dog 

Useful? Debatable. But my husband is a gadget guy, so now we have it.

I had my doubts about this doorbell. But I kinda like it. Having lived in big cities most of my adult life, I appreciate any device that deters package theft. And it’s interesting, if voyeuristic, looking through the Ring app at the videos and comments posted by Ring-doorbell-owning neighbors.

And yet. Something is nagging at me.

I think I know what that something is.

I do not want our society to become The Circle by Dave Eggers.

Have you read this novel? It’s a fascinating cautionary tale about an internet company called “The Circle” that insinuates itself into people’s lives in more and more intrusive ways, all in the name of progress. For instance, the Circle claims to have eliminated anonymous cyberbullying with its “TruYou” technology, where everyone has to use their real name and be verified using their social security number. People hate anonymous comment-section assholes, so they hand over their personal details willingly to access the Circle’s social media platform. Next, the Circle invents and sells these tiny video cameras that can be stuck to the side of any building and broadcast video worldwide. The cameras help solve crimes, and they expose evil regimes, and the Circle takes credit. Then, a few politicians start wearing the cameras 24/7, hoping for an edge over their opponents by claiming 100% transparency, no back-room dirty dealings. Soon everyone gets pressured to wear the cameras, because, according to the Circle, aren’t we all on our best behavior when we’re conscious that other people are observing us?

You get the idea. Privacy goes bye-bye “for the good of humankind.” Big Brother is watching, except Big Brother is a company. The Circle is not the greatest novel I ever read, but it’s worth reading for the thought experiment alone. (I haven’t seen the movie, but everyone seems to agree that it sucked.)

Fiction books aside, privacy is already a scarce commodity these days. When I walk my dog, I’m undoubtedly captured on several dozen video cameras that surveil the exteriors of residential and commercial buildings. If you shop at a store, visit any government office, or fly on an airplane, you’re on film. And of course Google knows your browsing history, your saved passwords, products you’ve purchased, etc.

Is our family part of the problem, by having a Ring doorbell?

I'm torn. I like knowing when a package gets delivered so I can go out and bring it indoors. My husband, who leaves for work before dawn, loves seeing video clips of the kids going off to school. Odds are low that our camera would help capture a criminal, given the crime rate in our sleepy little suburb, but it’s possible.

But I do wonder what’s next. In-home cameras, subsidized by health insurance companies, to alert medical authorities in case someone falls and doesn't get up? Police-sponsored audio surveillance in urban areas, to detect crime?

At what point do we stop being technological innovators and become a dystopian novel? I hope we don’t get to that point. Dystopian novels wouldn’t be fun anymore if they were real life.

A couple of really smart legal scholars nailed how I feel about privacy:

The intensity and complexity of life, attendant upon advancing civilization, have rendered necessary some retreat from the world… so that solitude and privacy have become more essential to the individual. 

They wrote that in the Harvard Law Review. In 1890. Prompted by the recent invention of the Kodak Brownie, which became the nation's first mass market camera. You might say they took the long view.