Does Our Technology Take Us Close To The World Of Big Brother?

“Government exists to protect us from each other. Where government has gone beyond its limits is in deciding to protect us from ourselves”(Reagan). In the book, 1984, Winston recognizes the power the government has over the citizens of Oceania. The citizens lack privacy from the government. George Orwell warns society about a government with total control in 1984. Based on Dana Hawkin’s article, “Cheap Video Cameras Are Monitoring Our Every Move”, as well as Beech Etal’s, “The Other Side of the Great Firewall”, society may truly have something to fear in the form of surveillance and information manipulation.

There is a high probability that most people have heard of the saying, “Big Brother is watching you.” The saying comes from George Orwell’s book, 1984. A story which depicts a nightmarish view of society. Big Brother plays a key role throughout the novel for his surveillance state. Surveillance functions consistently in the dystopia, affecting the way individuals view themselves by their present day technology.

A big question that many people are asking is if the government is watching us illegally. In the book 1984 by George Orwell he talks about Big Brother which are the people that are watching everyone, this quote explains what is written everywhere. “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU, the caption beneath it ran” (1984; pg 2) . Society today believe that the government is putting unnecessary cameras in cities and also watching over our phones. The advances in technology that we have might or might not be getting us closer to the world of Big Brother.

Is our technology taking us closer to the world of Big Brother? In my opinion I say yes but I also say no. Yes because social media for one makes us more like a hive mind in a way because social media we see something and we fill in the gap for those who do not know. Another example is that there are cameras are everywhere and is supposedly for public safety in a way it is but reality they are watching us. They have building cameras inside and out, street cameras, traffic cameras, and even the cameras on our phones. They claim that it's only for public safety and only when a problem occurs but it is use to watch us and track our movement. The police can access your phone's camera without permission and without you knowing. In my opinion I think the police should let those who want to help sign a contract stating when a problem

Many Americans do not realize that at any time of the day the government could be observing their “private” lives. On the other hand, some individuals have predicted the government would develop a form of constant surveillance, like George Orwell who forecasted a futuristic government, which used technology as a relentless eye on the members of the society in the novel 1984. 1984 was correct, to an extent, in predicting that the government would increase their usage of technology to constantly observe their people, whether in public or their private homes.

Today we are watched by our government through our technology. Such as, smartphones and laptops. For example, “We are able to see what 100,000,000 people are doing,...”(DesMarais,2012). This reveals how the book “1984” and present day have similar schemes.

Everyday technology is advancing and has become part of people’s everyday life, from phones, cars, computers, and even the light switches in a room. With all this technology, it would be easy to use it for other things then what they were intended for. For example what if someone wanted to control what another person could do such as sleeping or going places. It would not not be that hard to try and control another human being, or even worse being watched every single moment of everyday for the rest of their life. That idea is not as farfetched as it may seem now with even more phones, computers, televisions and cameras in general. Technology is taking humanity nearer and nearer to world of Big Brother and the worse part is that if they are not careful, Big Brother could raise without any citizen ever knowing.

It is quite obvious that a balance between both privacy and security is necessary to please both sides, yet steps to achieve this goal are not being made in the right direction. Privacy is about respecting individuals, however this level of respect is often lacking in many communities, George Orwell’s renowned novel 1984 explores this absence further. 1984 is an exaggerated representation of the extremes of privacy vs security, where the citizens are being constantly watched by the government, subsequently losing the little privacy they had. Much like Fahrenheit 451 and society today, in this dystopian novel people are watched even in their own home through telescreens by the omniscient leader known as Big Brother who controls everything, even the citizens’ language, and their history. These citizens do not even have freedom of thought.

our technology is taking us closer to the world of Big Brother is invalid due to the constitution,

As a growing topic of discussion, privacy in our society has stirred quite some concern. With the increase of technology and social networking our standards for privacy have been altered and the boundary between privacy and government has been blurred. In the article, Visible Man: Ethics in a World Without Secrets, Peter Singer addresses the different aspects of privacy that are being affected through the use of technology. The role of privacy in a democratic society is a tricky endeavor, however, each individual has a right to privacy. In our society, surveillance undermines privacy and without privacy there can be no democracy.

Everyone has always wondered if people were ever watching them. Our technology today is capable to eavesdrop in on anyone’s conversations even if their phones are turned off. In the novel, “1984”, the party INGSOC uses telescreens to watch over the people and always know what they are up to. This denies the people’s rights and privileges to go about their business as they please. The technology we have today is almost exact to what big brother uses in George Orwell’s novel by taking over the public and private parts of our lives.

In George Orwell’s novel 1984, Big Brother was a character of fiction. He was able to oversee everything and virtually controlled the daily lives of millions of people via numerous types of technology. Through telescreens, microphones, cameras, and ‘thought police’, the government was able to keep complete dominance over the people. Now, as we advance technologically the thought of Big Brother watching over us isn’t so far-fetched. If put into the wrong hands, information and technology can be very dangerous, as shown in 1984. Even though the government claim they use social media to keep us safe, Orwell’s vision could be slowly coming true. Big Brother no longer has to work hard to monitor us, for we’re inadvertently

Technology is apart of mostly everyone’s life and daily schedule, but often people fail to realize the fact that the government has the ability to monitor everything someone does through these devices. In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, a futuristic government spies on their citizens through technology found all throughout their homes. The government used secret microphones, telescreens, and the thought police, a group in charge of finding rebels against the party, in order to monitor what people say and think. There are many examples of this in today’s society: Amazon’s Alexa, Samsung Smart televisions, and social media apps. Amazon’s Alexa and Samsung Smart Televisions are voice recognition systems

Attention Getter: As the George Orwell writes in his book 1984, “Big Brother is watching you.”

Government surveillance in the past was not a big threat due to the limitations on technology; however, in the current day, it has become an immense power for the government. Taylor, author of a book on Electronic Surveillance supports, "A generation ago, when records were tucked away on paper in manila folders, there was some assurance that such information wouldn 't be spread everywhere. Now, however, our life stories are available at the push of a button" (Taylor 111). With more and more Americans logging into social media cites and using text-messaging devices, the more providers of metadata the government has. In her journal “The Virtuous Spy: Privacy as an Ethical Limit”, Anita L. Allen, an expert on privacy law, writes, “Contemporary technologies of data collection make secret, privacy invading surveillance easy and nearly irresistible. For every technology of confidential personal communication…there are one or more counter-technologies of eavesdropping” (Allen 1). Being in the middle of the Digital Age, we have to be much more careful of the kinds of information we put in our digital devices.