Mrs. Davis
Expository 12
March 24th, 2015
1984 Essay #4 Technology and privacy is a very controversial topic. In the book, 1984, by George Orwell, the nation of Oceana is controlled by a totalitarian government whose leader is “Big Brother”. Every corner of the city is surrounded with propaganda promoting the slogan, “Big Brother is Watching You”. Streets and homes are filled with telescreens that can witness one’s every move and can never be turned off. Today’s advance of technology is slowly taking society closer to the world of Big Brother because of how easy it has become to access an individual’s personal information through a phone or computer. Our technology is evidently taking society closer to the world of Big Brother with the continuous and rapid advancement of phones. In the article, “That’s No Phone, That’s my Tracker”, Peter Maass and Megha Rajapogalan focus on surveillance technology that we voluntarily carry with us at all times. Almost all smartphones have advanced geographic technology, allowing cellular systems to constantly check and record the location of all phones on their networks. Applications like Google Maps, Twitter, Instagram, and Snap Chat know when and where we go somewhere. It is even more disturbing than it sounds, “New research suggests that by cross-referencing your geographical data with that of your friends, it is possible to predict your future whereabouts with a much higher degree of accuracy” (Maas/Rajagopalan). Privacy settings on many phones pinpoint locations without notifying the user, which highly imitates the telescreens in 1984. Like the telescreens, which watch people’s every move 24/7, our lives are dominated by cellphones, tablets, laptops, and computers that are real-life two way mirrors to most of people’s lives. The biggest direct similarity of today’s society to Big Brothers, is that our government is able to monitor everyone’s phone calls. Our texting vocabulary is also extremely similar to the purpose of Newspeak, whose point is to shorten vocabulary. IPhones have made it easier than ever to collect the nation’s fingerprints, with the “Touch ID”, which uses your fingerprint to access your phone. Cameras on everyday items we use like cellphones, mp3 players, watches, alarms, and cars make it easier for the government to get our information and watch the user at literally every moment of the day. In, 1984, Orwell impressively details how disturbing the telescreens are, “There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment”. The telescreens on streets mirror “the ever-present surveillance cameras that spy on the average person as they go about their daily routine” (Beale). This is not identical to Big Brothers world, but is very similar to it. Our society and the rapid progression of technology has enabled our government and corporations to constantly and broadly collect data from individuals with disregard towards privacy. For that reason, our government is slowly taking us closer to the world of Big Brother. Most people do not think much about it, but the truth is that people are being watched, tracked and monitored more today than at any other time in human history (Synder).
Works Cited
Beale, Lewis. "We 're Living '1984 ' Today." CNN. Cable News Network, 3 Aug. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2015.
Maass, Peter, and Megha Rajagopalan. "That’s No Phone. That’s my Tracker." The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 July 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.
Synder, Michael. "So Are We Living in 1984?" Info Wars. The American Dream, 20 July 2012. Web. 18 Mar. 2015.
"So Are We Living in 1984?" The New Yorker. N.P., 11 June 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.
Cited: Beale, Lewis. "We 're Living '1984 ' Today." CNN. Cable News Network, 3 Aug. 2013. Web. 11 Feb. 2015. Maass, Peter, and Megha Rajagopalan. "That’s No Phone. That’s my Tracker." The New York Times. The New York Times, 14 July 2012. Web. 19 Mar. 2015. Synder, Michael. "So Are We Living in 1984?" Info Wars. The American Dream, 20 July 2012. Web. 18 Mar. 2015. "So Are We Living in 1984?" The New Yorker. N.P., 11 June 2013. Web. 20 Mar. 2015.
You May Also Find These Documents Helpful
-
The article “Visible Man” written by Peter Singer discusses the issues that are involved with the topic of privacy. Many people feel that they are comfortable with the actions they are taking but they do not realize the information they are putting out into the real world. Singer explains how government officials use cell phone providers to gain insight on certain individuals. The idea that is stressed in this article is that too much privacy is never good, especially with government officials because the confidential information that gets leaked informs society on what it going on behind the scenes. The more information one can gather about a topic, the more informed they will be; furthermore, being well educated on a topic will allow one…
- 276 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
1. How does the archive footage during the opening moments of the film prepare the audience for the story?…
- 929 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The book 1984 depicts a utopia built on a world of fear and corrupted power. While the book seems like a false thing, 2016-17 has shown that objects of this book are in the world today. When it comes to power and people, 1984 is slowly becoming a reality. This is shown in today’s technology, in Trump’s Immigrant ban, and in the ‘sin taxes’. While 1984 seems like a weird book that most every highschooler reads, this fictional story is slowly becoming America’s reality.…
- 774 Words
- 4 Pages
Good Essays -
The book 1984, George Orwell depicts a world in which technology has advanced so far that the government of Oceania is able to constantly monitor it’s citizens. The actual year 1984 has passed and no such technology existed then; however, our modern technology is fairly similar to that found in the book 1984. Supposedly, the technology in our world is used for a different purpose then that of Big Brother’s world. However, “That’s No Phone. That’s My Tracker,” is an article by Peter Maass and Megha Rajagopalan that focuses on the use of cell phones as surveillance technology. In the article, the writers discuss how cell phones are simply trackers “ that happen to make calls” (Maass, Rajagopalan 1). Although they are a legitimate concern, surveillance…
- 549 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
6. One of the most grotesque is the brutal killing of those who do not listen to Big Brother, which is a part of the utopia of Oceania.…
- 787 Words
- 4 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
is trying to control our minds, as it says "thought crime does not entail death;…
- 1238 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays -
In Common Sense, Thomas Paine’s 1776 pamphlet advocating for American independence, “Government even in its best state is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one.” Government surveillance programs and apparatuses cross the line between protection and oppression when they violate civil liberties and threaten the privacy of everyday Americans. In our society today, with our rapidly expanding surveillance complex, our civil liberties are more at risk than ever before as the country’s surveillance expands in the open-ended war on terrorism. In George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, the government utilizes surveillance methods to maintain control over the people of Oceania.…
- 658 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
In George Orwell’s 1984, Winston Smith wrestles with oppression in Oceania, a place where the party scrutinizes human actions with everwatchful Big Brother. Defying a ban on individuality, Winston dares to express his thoughts in a diary and pursues a relationship with Julia. These criminal deeds bring Winston into the eye of the opposition, who then must reform the nonconformist. George Orwell’s 1984 introduced the watch words for life without freedom: BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU. The themes I will introduce to you somehow will describe what Winston is going through and how his life and the lives of other are being controlled, through psychological manipulation and the dangers of Totalitarianism.…
- 494 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Betrayal is a concept of one losing hope and trust in another. Unknowingly, one can be misled by individuals closest to them, allowing them to lose hope. For example, one can be a victim of deception by the disloyalty of a close friend they trust. Similarly, George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-four demonstrates one losing hope in the individuals they meet. The interwoven themes of hope and betrayal are evident through O’Brien, Julia, and Mr.Charrington as they betray Winston, and Oceania’s society since they are misled by Big Brother.…
- 1226 Words
- 5 Pages
Better Essays -
According to Orwell’s 1984, the only source of maintaining humanity is to retain an unadulterated loyalty between loved ones. Analyzing the composition of one’s soul, Winston, the main protagonist, fathoms that the proles are the only ones humane enough to manage real love, trust, and private loyalties. He understands that “what matter[s] [are] individual relationships, and a completely helpless gesture, an embrace, a tear, a word spoken to a dying man” (136). Without fully repressing the proles, the proles are able to treasure their ability to love and never betray their family and friends. They are human unlike the Party members because they possess their primitive emotions from the past and are not hardened inside. Opposite of the proles,the Party members are thoroughly influenced by the Party and Big Brother to break their instinctual bonds with their family and to become an enemy to everyone except for the Party. Since children are the easiest to indoctrinate, they “are systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, ...they adored the Party...[and] all their ferocity [are] turned outwards against the enemies,[especially to their parents]” (24). The modern children of Oceania are not considered to be human because they are forced into making a loyal relationship to the Party and are forced to destroy their connection with their own blood. It is not a natural connection like from a loving mother sacrificing herself for her child , therefore, the children does not actually ‘love’ Big Brother, they just tend to believe they do. In addition to killing one’s humanity, Winston turns into one of the Party’s robots later in the novel. After breaking his ardent devotion and giving up his first and only true love, Julia, “he was walking down the white tiled corridor... the long-hoped-for bullet was entering his brain. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother” (245). Orwell’s use of the bullet symbolizes…
- 396 Words
- 1 Page
Good Essays -
Allow yourself to paint a colorful daydream in your mind in which the government controls every aspect of your life. Those colors that you’re seeing are probably various shades of grey and dark blue; it’s the perfect rainy palette an artist would use to describe a very sad image. No one has the right to tell others how they should live and certainly no one has the right to regulate if you’re actually doing as they’ve told you. But this is exactly what was predicted to be in the future by George Orwell in the well-known classic novel 1984. His book described a sordid futuristic world in which every aspect of life is being monitored by the supremacy of The Party, regulating its citizens of everything from sexual partners to the things they are allowed to think. In fact, the main character Winston Smith, is actually arrested for thought-crime. Fortunately, however, this totalitarian tale was set in the bleak, fictional streets of London, Oceania; the United States has quite a stable constitution in place to protect and prevent any aggressive attack from government to manage its people in the way that those leading Orwell’s dystopia had.…
- 1374 Words
- 6 Pages
Powerful Essays -
“Does the massive use of Big Brother surveillance technologies make you feel safer because it can protect you from crime, or less safe because of possible violations of your civil liberties? Will you be more careful now using communication technologies, knowing that anything you type or send electronically could be reconstructed and used to judge your lawfulness or your character?”…
- 358 Words
- 2 Pages
Satisfactory Essays -
1984 has many qualities that can be pointed out in a very long and thorough paper. But this paper will focus on just a couple. In George Orwell's Novel 1984 the protagonist shows various transitions in his attitude and life style.…
- 678 Words
- 3 Pages
Good Essays -
Niccolo Machiavelli once said that "Since it is difficult to join them together, it is safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking." When it comes to the governance of human beings, communication and words outweigh violence. It is impossible to have one perfect society. There has yet to be a society in which there was not something wrong. Different attempts at a perfect society have come about but none has been proven to work without fault. Communism was a good thought but when put into action fails. Not far off from Communism comes the term Totalitarianism. A system of government where a class, group or party feel as though their authority has no bounds and strive to regulate every form of public or private life whatever way they see fit. Fighting in battles against totalitarian governments, such as the Nazi Party and the Soviet Union’s Joseph Stalin, was Eric Arthur Blair, better known as George Orwell. It is amongst the rise of dictators and the beginning of totalitarian societies that Orwell wrote and published the novel, 1984, a warning in disguise. Orwell’s predictions for what the future would look like if society continued its ways are seen through the eyes of Winston Smith. Winston’s life in the novel allows one to feel fear and concern toward Big Brother and his methods of power over civilization. Winston was able to experience dealing with three of Big Brother’s “tactics” of the government exploiting history, enforcing propaganda, and manipulating individuals’ thoughts at first hand. Winston lives in Oceania, a dystopia where the terrors of a totalitarian government are unavoidable. A totalitarian society is established through manipulation and control of one’s mind and body. It is maintained as a consequence of the threat of excessive abuse, propaganda, and force which can be seen in Winston’s everyday life.…
- 355 Words
- 2 Pages
Good Essays -
Getting spied on by the government on a daily basis is abnormal. In the novel, “1984” by George Orwell that's exactly what was occurring. The people in this society were always being watched and “big brother” knew what people were doing most of the time. Living in a place like that seems eerie and frightening. In the novel, they repeat this quote which is odd yet true in today's society. The quote is “ war is peace, freedom is slavery and ignore is strength.”…
- 1075 Words
- 5 Pages
Good Essays