"I knew the stranger that I’ve never spoken to was paying attention to me"

The omnipresence of social media and immersion into the digital world has encouraged sharing, visibility, and exposure. This is seen to propel individuals into an online surveillance culture, promoting observant behaviours, facilitating a stalking mentality among individuals (Lyon, 2017).

The rise in preoccupation with social media and constant accessibility of information, has motivated individuals to engage in information seeking behaviours, subsequently encouraging a surge in normalised surveillance behaviours, such as creeping and monitoring (Marcum, Higgins & Nicholson, 2018; Nongpong & Charoensukmongkol, 2016). Paired with the lack of transparency of online boundaries, social media promotes a ’breeding ground’ for online surveillance, which has the potential to develop into more deviant, surveillant behaviours such as cyberstalking (March et al., 2022). 

There have been many attempts to define online surveillant behaviours, yet there is a significant lack of consensus and overlapping conceptualisations (Frampton & Fox, 2021). The current study aimed to explore the variations between online surveillant behaviours on social media and subsequent motivations, that will help to distinguish between surveillant actions. To do so, we conducted multiple focus groups to discuss a series of scenarios, that explored the variation in a range of online surveillant behaviours.

Scenarios were designed and fabricated by the research team, theoretically grounded in previous academic research (Frampton & Fox, 2021). Each scenario was explored using semi-structured questions, to address the lack of consensus around specific characteristics of each behaviour. 

Using inductive content analysis, three categories emerged with supporting sub-categories: User Actions, Perceptual Understanding and Intentions and Motivations. The findings provide a distinction between surveillant behaviours, along a continuum of passive, active and interactive user actions. The distinction between each action, is based on frequency, scope, and degree of specific behaviours.

Passive user actions, such as following and browsing were seen to be normalised on social media, confirming the surveillant culture (Stiff, 2019). But as the frequency and intensity of these passive actions increase, they are seen to develop into more active monitoring behaviours (Smoker & March 2017). This active engagement involves a more distinguished motive, driven by connection, which can develop into an obsession, influencing the intensity of user actions.

However, this connection can be an illusion, whereby as the intensity increases, individuals develop an obsession with a target. Consequently, behaviours become obsessive in nature and increase concurrently, leading to more deviant behaviours such as cyberstalking (Andreassan et al., 2012).

Current findings have emerged a typology of surveillant user actions (passive, active, interactive/obsessive), which can aid in the measurement of online user behaviours. The ability to distinguish online surveillant behaviours along a continuum, significantly helps to conceptualise the variations between the behaviours and how they develop along a trajectory of obsession. Future research will need to establish the specific motivations that underpin each passive, active and interactive user actions. 

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References:

Andreassen, C. S., Torsheim, T., Brunborg, G. S., & Pallesen, S. (2012).Development of a Facebook addiction scale. Psychological reports, 110(2), 501-517.

Frampton, J. R., & Fox, J. (2021). 'Monitoring, creeping, or surveillance? A synthesis of online social information seeking concepts'. Review of Communication Research, 9, 1-42.

Lyon, D. (2017). 'Digital citizenship and surveillance| Surveillance culture: engagement, exposure, and ethics in digital modernity'. International Journal of Communication, 11, 19.

March, E., Szymczak, P., Di Rago, M., & Jonason, P. K. (2022). Passive, invasive, and duplicitous: Three forms of intimate partner cyberstalking. Personality and individual differences, 189, 111502.

Marcum, C. D., Higgins, G. E., & Nicholson, J. (2018). 'Crossing boundaries online in romantic relationships: An exploratory study of the perceptions of impact on partners by cyberstalking offenders'. Deviant Behavior, 39(6), 716-731.

Nongpong, S., & Charoensukmongkol, P. (2016). 'I don’t care much as long as I am also on Facebook: Impacts of social media use of both partners on romantic relationship problems'. The Family Journal, 24(4), 351-358.

Smoker, M., & March, E. (2017). 'Predicting perpetration of intimate partner cyberstalking: Gender and the Dark Tetrad'. Computers in Human Behavior, 72, 390-396.

Stiff, C. (2019). The dark triad and Facebook surveillance: How Machiavellianism, psychopathy, but not narcissism predict using Facebook to spy on others. Computers in Human Behavior, 94, 62-69.