Commodification of the Body

[Page 207]The unremitting surveillance and concealed tracking of the human body have intensified over the 21st century. The emergence of smartphone technologies, online rewards programs, fitness apps, and facial recognition software has led to the daily collection of personal data by both corporations and the government. Security measures designed and implemented into portable gadgets, such as location settings and fingerprint detection, also eliminate all notions of wandering and concealment in everyday routines. Even one’s private information, including medical details, can be easily extracted through an individual’s operation of devices. The standards of confidentiality are challenged and replaced with modern technological initiatives powered by computers.

Surveillance routines are further ingrained into modern socialization practices, as the lives of strangers are readily observable through the consumption of reality ...