It’s not stranger danger you should be afraid of, it’s video doorbell derangement syndrome | Arwa Mahdawi

Onone of my many pleasures lie in my former home’s Facebook group. An apartment complex in New York that houses the population of a small town is classified as a naturally occurring retirement community, which means there are plenty of people in the group with time and energy to devote to petty feuds. Gossip is second to none and often a little reckless. At one point there was a heated debate about contraceptives for pigeons which resulted in at least one person being banned.

Lately, a kind of mania has gripped the group. An influential neighbor belatedly found out about the video doorbells. When he bought one, it sparked a wave of other people buying the devices — and compulsively monitoring them to check for package thieves. Every other Facebook post now seems to be a picture of some hapless stranger caught on a video doorbell with a panicked caption along the lines of “stranger danger.”

“This guy with a huge bag was standing outside my door for a few minutes!!!” one post read. “WATCH OUT!!!” Hours later, someone stepped in to explain that the suspicious intruder had no nefarious intentions; it was just a delivery man who got lost. Crisis averted.

“Watch out for this guy!” another post advised, along with a close-up of someone’s face. “He was checking all the doors on my floor!” Later, the person in question – a confused resident of the building – clarified that they weren’t trying to rob anyone, they were just trying to find out where the annoying noise was coming from. Another crisis has been avoided.

I’m not judging anyone. Video doorbells are not only an ethical minefield and a monitoring nightmare, they can quickly drive you crazy. Video doorbell disorder syndrome – whose symptoms include paranoia, anxiety and a compulsion to spy on your neighbors – is an alarmingly easy condition to develop. I have encountered it myself. I once found myself forensically analyzing my video files to see which neighbor was dumping their trash in front of my house on dumpster day. So while video doorbells are useful for avoiding Jehovah’s Witnesses, I think they are for the birds. Who, by the way, probably shouldn’t be on birth control.