Oversharing

Last week during the install-a-door-and-discover-that-your-whole-house-is-rotten project, the kid doing gofer work took advantage of his boss’s momentary absence to wander into the kitchen, where I was on the computer, and talk to me.

Now I’ve exchanged maybe five sentences with this kid in the past, all completely casual. But with virtually no preamble, he informs me that he’s had a bad month because on his birthday he came home to discover his girlfriend and his roommate doing guess what on the living room sofa. He commences to go into detail.

I make a few politely sympathetic noises while trying to indicate that I’m doing something really, really — I mean really, vitally! — important on my computer. I eventually have to say outright that I’m deadlining.

I’m embarrassed that any young man would think that a stranger either would want to hear the intimate details of his relationships or should hear them.

Where are the boundaries? Are there boundaries any more?

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Amazon.com is wonderful, but why, every single time we buy something, does it suggest that we should “share” the big news on social media?

“Hey, everybody! I just bought dog wormer! Ava’s been doing those butt-scoots on the carpet again, you know, and having her anal glands expressed simply didn’t do the trick.”

But even if you actually buy something with a coolness factor, why on earth would you want to tell hundreds or thousands of “friends”? And why would they want to know?

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I’ve been casually following the will-they-or-won’t-they deal in which Apple might (or might not) be buying Beats By Dr. Dre for several billion dollars.

I had never heard of Beats, but it seems they make headphones that have high status and terrible sound. Some found the deal too too ridiculous to be true. But on Saturday, NPR speculated that what Apple really wants to buy is a ready-made device and marketshare for “smart” headphones. To wit:

“Apple has a great deal of interest in putting sensors of various types in headphones and making headphones smart,” Hertsens says.

Such headphones could monitor a lot about the wearer, he says.

“Temperature, pulse, perspiration, sensors for athletic tracking applications, position sensing so they can tell when your head is moving, the ability to give you cues to where things are,” Hertsens says.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Patent and Trademark office gave Apple a patent for a sports monitoring system for headphones. The patent says the devices would also be able to tell when the user is speaking, or know if the headphones are on ears or off….

Jim Ninesling, who runs Bragi’s U.S. operations, says ultimately, smart headphones won’t just monitor things like heart rate — they’ll actually be able to tell what the wearer is doing.

“You don’t have to tell it that you’re biking; it knows,” Ninesling says. “You don’t have to tell it that you’re swimming; it knows by your body movements.”

Now, I can see why an athlete, perhaps, might want to monitor his own physical movements and condition or share that information with a trainer. I can see how somebody in dire health might want a system that informs his doctor or his wife if he’s fallen and can’t get up.

But the rest of us hardly need to wear — and pay for! — devices that are “smart” enough to know where we are, whether we’re talking, and whether we’re biking, rowing, walking, or tossing back a few beers. Um … don’t we already know that for ourselves? (Unless, of course, we’ve knocked back a few too many and are in the process of drowning in the toilet.)

Pretty clearly, these onrushing systems are intended to share all that intimate info with the headphone makers — and with the slavering marketers gathered in growing packs around “smart” tech. And no doubt also with You Know Who.

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And now Facebook has tech that can listen to the sounds in your environment — music, TV shows whatever — and commit various forms of “smartness” upon them.

This upset enough people that Facebook had to assure everybody that its listening was strictly voluntary.

Maybe so. But a) why the heck would anybody want to volunteer and b) given that spytech is capable of activating microphones and cameras without our knowledge or consent, why would anybody trust anything the Facebook branch of the US surveillance complex ever does or says?

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And while this next form of oversharing isn’t exactly voluntary, did anybody here — anybody? — not know that when the fedgov launched its so-called Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the first order of business (and of course, the actual, though never-acknowledged main purpose) would be creating more mega-databases on our financial lives?

Seriously, could any adult human with a functioning brain not have seen that coming?

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But it appears that actual, functioning human brains are rapidly being replaced by heads full of little narcisstic mirrors.

I don’t know if there’s really an “epidemic of narcissim” as has so often been noted. But I do know that in this “selfie era” people seem increasingly Without Clue.

They are Without Clue about boundaries.

They are Without Clue about how oversharing might harm them.

They are Without Clue about how they’re being used.

They are Without Clue about the freedom and autonomy they’re eagerly surrendering.

They are Without Clue that other people have lives and interests that may simply — oh the horror! — not include any desire to know the minutia of their lives.

Blame the Internet. Blame the iPhone. Blame the decades of self-esteem promotion. Blame the concept and the reality of “entitlements.” But you can’t blame the oversharers themselves, because you know, that might hurt their fragile widdle feewings.

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Back for a moment to the oversharing kid standing in my kitchen.

After the fact, it occurred to me that he might have some real motive for blurting all that at me. There was food on my kitchen counter. Among the other things he confessed at me was the fact that his miscreant roommate had somehow “taken all my foodstamps.” (Never mind that the “stamps” are a debit card these days, which should have been securely in Overshare Kid’s wallet.)

“I’ve been starving,” he said.

I had already left bags of candy and granola bars for the kid and his boss, so it didn’t occur to me that Overshare might have been trying to get something more from me with that remark. I’m still not sure. I’m not great at picking up hints from people I don’t know.

I do know, however, that earlier in the month, Overshare Kid was supposed to have been on several projects where he would have earned $72 per six-hour day, well above minimum wage. But he blew the projects off without notice.

His heart was too broken for him to work. Which I can understand. It’s tough being young. But hey, kid, if you’re that worried about starving, there’s a remedy — and it’s right there in front of you, if you could only look far enough beyond your little ego to see it.