While any user can view the contents of the pg_stat_activity view, only a superuser can freely examine the contents of every column. To avoid security exploits, regular users cannot view the current query activity, any connection information, or fields related to query time or status.
To get the most out of this view safely, we want to grant elevated privileges to specific users dedicated to monitoring and status checks. In order to do this, we must first connect to the database as a superuser (such as the postgres user) for the duration of this recipe.
