Student Freya Price will be on a night out with her friends, but she cannot truly relax.
The 21-year-old is “hyper aware” while in nightclubs – avoiding promoters’ cameras and watching for strangers filming – fully aware that any embarrassing moments could end up as content.
Freya said feeling monitored had cheated her out of the carefree night life Millennials enjoyed growing up.
While, for previous generations, embarrassing moments may have been talked about or uploaded to a blurry Facebook album, now they can be filmed, shared and viewed by thousands within hours.
Neuroscientist and author Dean Burnett said more people were “more anxious about doing something which could be seen as embarrassing online”.
Freya said she wished she could feel comfortable dancing, being silly and enjoying the moment, but the thought of seeing videos of herself was “quite a big worry”.
The third year Cardiff University student said she and her friends had often been minding their own business when “all of a sudden there’s a camera in your face” as club promoters try to capture content.
On top of that, the fear of being caught in someone’s TikTok plays on her mind.
She said some of her friends had appeared on club Instagram pages a week later looking “plastered”.
She described this as a background worry that leaves her “on edge”.
Freya is also worried about Meta glasses, having seen videos on social media of women after nights out without them being aware, as it is hard to tell between them and typical glasses.
“I find it quite scary how easy it’s becoming to film people and post them on social media without them even knowing there’s a camera.”
Freya said she liked the idea of a sticker being put over the camera, as clubs in Berlin have done.
Tracy Clayton, a Meta spokesman, told the people should behave responsibly with any technology and the company had teams “dedicated to limiting and combating misuse, but as with any technology, the onus is ultimately on individual people to not actively exploit it”.