Addicted To Doorbells

England has some of the most endearing towns and villages anywhere in the world. We may lack anything like the drama of the Rockies and the sun-drenched beaches of Florida, but through centuries of building with masonry, we've created living environments that last. It's entirely conceivable for an ordinary person to live in a house that predates Napoleon or George III.

But don't be fooled by the stone walls, picturesque gardens and slate roofs - even in the oldest and most remote villages, historic charm is a facade for the trappings of modernity. Right now, for instance, my house sits between a Norman castle and flocks of sheep, but everybody around has ultra-fast fibre connections, 5G on our phones, and household appliances - particularly washing machines and ovens - with so many settings that NASA has to set them up for us.

And we've recently become infected with a modern and utterly hilarious tech malady from the suburbs - doorbell security cameras. They've been bolted to almost every house in my village and local social media groups have become alive with warnings about strangers approaching, as well as "thieves" and inconsiderate pet owners. Invariably these turn out to be lost delivery drivers, the inebriated pinching pot plants, and dog turds. But every so often you see a gem like the "youth stealing from a neighbour's car".

A young man walks along the street after dark, ignoring every car he passes, until reaching the car parked opposite a video doorbell. As soon as he gets there, the car's lights flash to indicate it’s been remotely unlocked, and the young man opens a door, reaches in, closes the door and walks away. We don't know what he did next, but one assumes it involved either cigarette skins and a lighter or a rolled-up banknote.

Away from the hype and hustle, I try to understand the broad themes of technology and society. At the very least, I'll make your inbox less boring.

The irony is that while the young man probably had a mere recreational attachment to his vice (and was likely just a student home for the summer), the doorbell gangs seem to be utterly addicted to theirs. The same people repeatedly post footage online and comment on each other's security recordings with platitudes like "stay safe", "it's getting worse around here", and "I'll keep an eye out". And, naturally, they thank each other for keeping the area under watch.

But, aside from students buying packets of snot dust, my tiny town is so crime-free that it hasn't heard a police siren since Van Halen were together. Listen to the doorbell film buffs, however, and we're living backstage at a Mötley Crüe concert. It's such a bubble of addictive neurosis that you almost feel sorry for those tech tycoons who wasted their time creating dopamine-hacking social platforms. They could have just invested in cameras.

Except, actually, plenty of tech tycoons did realise the addictive potential of video doorbells. They knew full well that there was a ready market of neighbourhood snoops itching to record everything and obsess over it, but that they didn't want to be seen as creepy by doing something obviously creepy like install a massive CCTV camera on their house.

But, give them a discreet camera concealed in the doorbell and offer the pretence that the interactive "talk to the postman" features are the real selling point, and suddenly the video recording part is a useful by-product. After all, how could a good citizen fail to record their neighbourhood's goings on, now that the doorbell happens to offer the ability? And, now that they have the recordings, who wouldn't feel compelled to post them on the internet as a public service?

I think this creates a double-tech addiction phenomenon. First, the snoops are addicted to the footage their doorbells are recording, and then they're addicted to posting about it on social media. The tech tycoons who saw the addictive potential of doorbells are profiting hand-in-hand with the tech tycoons who own the addictive certainty of social platforms.

I wonder if the first set of tech bosses are annoyed that the second are putting ads around the footage?