If the answer is “yes”, which it is, of course, then let us take a look at your current state of exposure.
Before we proceed, I would like to mention, that “you”, as well as “I, we, us, them” and other personal pronouns, I am using in a very vague sense, not meaning the reader, or the author in particular. I am talking about the society in general, often in plural, all of certain people at the same time.
Back to exposure. I know you’ve already deleted your Insta and the only keep Facebook just for the log-ins. You’ve sworn off Twitter, and whenever you do tell those ignorants what the world politic is all about, you never use your personal email. And that’s great. Very good. This is exceptionally important for your mental health. As for privacy? Nah. Useless. Nobody needs you to identify yourself on massive, multi-billion strong social network just to peek on you – that one is not surveillance, it is merely a tool to shape your opinions in order to train you into a better consumer. Your political opinions? Purchasing decisions? Yeah, they are not yours. They have been slowly built up in you by incremental arousal of emotions. Mostly negative ones. You are clinging to that cesspit that Twitter is just to laugh in the faces of the idiots, who have no idea what they are talking about. Some idiots on Facebook pushing dumb conspiracies? Yeah, you can’t leave that network while such injustice is taking place and Zuck doesn’t pay attention. Quora is not banning nazis? Stay on, report, complain, write better content.
Surveillance is, just as it always has been, much more physical. It is personal. It is about you. This is someone taking a personal interest in you specifically. And most of the time they do it with a purpose in mind. Malicious, dark, terrible purpose. Blackmail, kidnapping, homicide, theft, imprisonment (if the surveillance is done by a governmental body).
But then again, this isn’t always the case. This time you can take a deep breath and relax. I am running this act of surveillance with no malicious intent, or at least as harmless as surveillance can be. It is for the arts. It is for the arts that I mass-scan your SSID. For the arts I sniff your transmission packages and know more about your router than you do. Why? Because while you are obsessing about hiding data from Meta (but not really), you are broadcasting the name of your household, or pet, or your dream, to the entire world in the radius the massive antennas on your 802.11ac router can reach (about 300 meters). I have an antenna on my little ESP32, I get your data drive-by style, from the comfort of my car.
But it’s ok, I am a friendly artist/philosopher. I don’t hack into your network, I don’t install keyloggers on your computer and don’t steal your passwords. Why? Is it because “you” aren’t personal enough? Is it because your dream is being the “boss” or, just like about 10% of the WiFi names I’ve scanned? You are exposed, but you are also anonymous. How am I suppose to pick you, with your D-Link Wireless AC750 router, if about 40% of people on my lists have the same? How are you different? Did you think you are so clever calling your WiFi “FBI Surveillance Van 05”? Please, there are more than 100 of these I’ve found within a week of driving. I can’t find you. You are a mass. Homogenous mass. I can tell who are you in different part of the city, but this is as personal as it gets. And to be honest, being mashed up with hundreds of thousand of people as one isn’t very personal.
Am I even committing surveillance then? Who am I surveilling? Am I surveilling if there is no subject of surveillance?