Is Lifelogging the end of privacy?

[00:00:04] Speaker A: Let's face it, smart glasses really haven't caught on in the way that everybody expected them to. And so did lifelogging in general. So where's the future where everybody knows what you're doing in any given moment that was painted in all of the more recent science fiction and future scenario novels? Well, meet this livestreaming wearable camera. Will this be the start of something new? Why hasn't this caught on yet? Will it ever? And what is lifelogging anyway? Haven't had one of these in a while, had

[00:00:29] Speaker A: we? Hey, I'm Brian, and welcome back to Explained and Talked About. Let's first get into the basis of this video. Ubiquiti Networks— yes, the company that makes enterprise-grade wireless equipment— just announced a device they're calling Front Row. And it's basically your own

[00:00:55] Speaker A: live TV station.

[00:00:56] Speaker B: It's a camera that you can wear around your neck or clip to your shirt that can livestream to Facebook, YouTube, or Periscope. The design reminds me a lot of a stopwatch, but don't let that fool you. While it can of course show you the time on its circular display, it is by no means a smartwatch. The screen is only used to interface with the cameras. Yes, there are 2 of them, though I don't really get why, given the use case of this device. This is by no means a review. You

[00:01:21] Speaker B: can check one out up at the info i. So let us get into what it can do real quick. First of all, this is not the first product of its kind, though it may be the most streamlined. The camera on it is always recording when you tell it to or every other moment during the day. It can create time lapses of your day, but it doesn't record all the time. This is not a 24/7 livestreaming device. This is entirely because of battery life though. So once we've

[00:01:46] Speaker B: got that figured out, there's really nothing preventing that. And you could of course connect a portable battery pack to it, but that's not necessarily ideal, as it makes the whole experience more cumbersome. And cumbersome was the experience of using 24/7 livestreaming equipment in the past. I mean, look at this guy. There were of course more streamlined options in the past too, like the Memoto that was then called the Narrative Clip and then vanished. Its

[00:02:11] Speaker B: problem was also battery life. And that no one wanted to use it.

[00:02:16] Speaker A: So you might ask, how is this different from my smartphone? Can't I livestream with that? And the answer for now, though mostly because of the battery limitations of these devices, is that it's not entirely different yet. But the idea that stands behind these cameras is much bigger than just normal livestreaming.

[00:02:32] Speaker B: That's the idea of a camera that you always have on you, that is always recording, or better yet, streaming in any situation. This is called lifelogging and would be very cumbersome with a smartphone. That's why these small cameras are interesting. If everyone had a livestreaming camera attached to their body, you could know what all of your friends were doing at any time, anywhere. Think of Snapchat on a whole new level. Tuning in with just the click of a button. This

[00:02:57] Speaker B: might remind you a lot of Amazon's Drop-In feature on their new Echo Show, where you can just tune into the happenings in the houses of your friends at any time, as long as you have permission. So because this is already in a home camera, you can see that it's not even that far-fetched anymore.

[00:03:12] Speaker A: So what would happen if everybody was wearing such a camera? Not necessarily the one I mentioned before, but a similar one. One that is always live streaming, or at least capable of it without any effort. How would it come to that? Well, I don't know, maybe that will be easy to explain later. But now let's look at the effects.

[00:03:31] Speaker B: First, this kind of thing would of course need a platform. The way YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook handle livestreams as part of your feed is not necessarily ideal for a permanently accessible stream, because the way they embed the stream implies a temporary situation. The way Instagram puts livestreams at the top of the feed in a separate section with an icon for every contact and a prominent placement on the profile would be more ideal for this. This way you could just click on the person's

[00:03:57] Speaker B: profile picture at the top of the social media app and see what they're up to. From this actually results a possible solution to the battery life problem that persists right now. What if the camera was only recording when somebody wanted to watch? Unless you had too many friends on the platform or were a public personality that has chosen to become— let's use that saying— transparent, then you would find someone who's interested all the time. But for the normal private social media

[00:04:22] Speaker B: user, this might be an interesting option.

[00:04:24] Speaker A: A platform that worked with this stream-on-demand approach would of course also have to implement software on the cameras So that they can start recording whenever somebody decides to tune in. Does this sound interesting to you? Maybe somebody should create such a platform. Do you think it would be a hit? So for all of this to not seem like a completely terrible idea, I think there would need to be a pause button so you can turn off the camera whenever you don't want somebody to watch, or

[00:04:49] Speaker A: at night, for example. Though the functionality would definitely need to be pausing the recording. It shouldn't be a record button, because the camera still has to be recording most of the time in order to meet the criteria of always being able to tune in.

[00:05:04] Speaker B: Obviously this sounds very similar to video calls, but it's not necessarily the same thing. While we technically could just call our friends with a video call when we are interested in what they're doing, most of us don't do it because it's very binding. You're actively engaging with each other in the moment. It's not as casual. The non-binding nature of modern social media apps makes WhatsApp, Instagram, and Snapchat so popular. You don't tell people something directly, you make it accessible to

[00:05:29] Speaker B: them, and they can then look at it and make of it what they want without having to directly respond. You care about each other, but it's very indirect, very casual. Some, me included, criticize this about modern social media, but it's what makes it so successful.

[00:05:44] Speaker A: This non-binding nature would also be true for So this all sounds like lifelogging would fit perfectly into our modern society. That may be, after all, why it's such a common theme in so many science fiction novels. But why hasn't it taken off then?

[00:05:59] Speaker B: A problem with a permanent stream would of course be the management of the data. A permanent livestream creates hundreds of gigabytes of data a month, something that can't function with any current data plan. Even with an unlimited plan, they will probably throttle you at that. The networks just can't support that at this time, not to mention that limited cell reception would make streaming in certain areas impossible anyway. And if you want to be able to go back and look

[00:06:24] Speaker B: at old footage, the created data also needs to be stored somewhere. We're talking terabytes of data every year for only one person, and even that would be heavily compressed data. So rewinding would either need to be impossible, or we would need way better and cheaper storage. Now I'm by no means a psychologist, but I also still want to touch on the effects that this would have on you if you were to use it. Being on camera makes you act differently

[00:06:50] Speaker B: because you know you're being watched. This is the same principle because of which security cameras can prevent crime. They make you able to spot possible crimes, sure, but when people know that they're being recorded by a camera, they're not as likely to perform criminal actions because of the fear of being caught. A similar effect occurs when people are watching you. You try to behave differently to not get judged. Now, just as cameras prevent crime, this

[00:07:15] Speaker B: can of course also have a positive implication. Maybe you will actually throw that plastic bag in the garbage can when somebody would judge you for not doing it.

[00:07:22] Speaker A: You tend to behave better when you're being recorded. That may be a good thing, but you also conform to the norm, or what you expect to be the norm. You always have to feel uncomfortable or are fearful that somebody might judge you for something that you do. That's the flip side of being recorded, and it's also why people oppose cameras in public.

[00:07:40] Speaker B: Peer pressure is another uncomforting thing that comes into play here, meaning that if enough people would be interested in lifelogging, the others would have to follow suit to not be excluded. Peer pressure is why we all use WhatsApp even though there are better alternatives and even though we may not like our data being exposed to big data companies. We exclude ourselves from the conversation when we don't use it. And peer pressure would also make people conform to the norms of the platform. When

[00:08:06] Speaker B: you always have your camera on pause, people might think you're hiding something or you don't want to share. People might think you're strange, and you don't want to be strange.

[00:08:16] Speaker A: So if all of this creeps you out, then you have the exact answer to why lifelogging hasn't taken off yet. Then there are of course also all of the battery life, data, and bandwidth limitations, but it also just doesn't fit into our modern society where everybody tries to portray their best image with fake Instagram pictures. These days, people even get discomforted when something isn't as perfect as they expect it to be. Lifelogging might remove your ability

[00:08:41] Speaker A: to be truly yourself as you try to conform. We already have enough of that. We don't need more of it, though you never know what the future holds. In case you want to look further into this, a very extreme example of the social impacts of this is displayed in the book The Circle by Dave Eggers. It's a really good book, and I can just recommend you to read it. There's also a fairly recent movie adaptation of the book, but while it's not as bad as the reviews might suggest,

[00:09:07] Speaker A: the book is definitely better. Now with that, I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, you know there's a button under it that you can press to help me out, and you should also press that follow button on Twitter, as I'm very active there. You can subscribe right here and check out a video about why crowdfunding campaigns don't work right here. I'm Brian, I'd like to thank you all for watching, and I'll see you in the next video. Bye! Bye!