Those of us attending a sporting event or concert recently have probably observed a troubling trend. So many of the younger people in attendance, who we now call millennials, are more interested in filming the event with their phone than simply watching and enjoying it. After our view of the proceedings is severely diminished, the films and photos are posted on social media, such as Facebook, and shared with the world. If attendance at the event is not somehow documented on social media, it’s as if they did not witness it.

Back in the dark ages of the 1990s, before the technology boom, defendants frequently conducted videotape surveillance in the hopes of catching plaintiffs on film engaged in robust activity. As recently as 2003, the Court of Appeals observed that “[i]n the world of personal injury litigation, defendants will sometimes conduct videotaped surveillance seeking to verify the extent of plaintiffs’ injuries or to establish that plaintiffs have feigned or exaggerated them.” Tran v. New Rochelle Hosp., 99 N.Y.2d 383, 385 (2003). These days, surveillance videographers are short on work and have gone the way of the Maytag repairman (millennials can look that one up on YouTube!). Their services are now rarely required because plaintiffs perform their own surveillance, carefully documenting and recording their lives, and then posting it all on social networking sites, complete with editorial comments.