allisonmckinney posted the question
Do you feel that "big brother" and tech surveillance is avoidable in modern society?
While government surveillance is not obvious, I do think that such an invasion of privacy is already here. In George Orwell's book 1984, he depicts that government surveillance is everywhere with the notion that "big brother is always watching". When the book was first published in 1949 it was outrageous that such government spying was possible, but today it seems very likely that such government surveillance is in place.
While it is not as obvious in real life as it was in 1984, government surveillance is nearing that level of spying as it is in George Orwell's book. In 1984, the totalitarian world displayed televisions to show where the government was watching. Televisions in the book are almost everywhere, and it makes the people very uncomfortable expressing themselves. The protagonist in the book, Winston, is seen in the first chapter hiding in the dark corner of his room where the television cannot see. It is in that corner where he expresses his true thoughts and feelings in the form of writing. While people in real life are a lot more expressive in public than in the book, the surveillance is almost the same. Every cell phone, computer, or device that is connected to the internet is a device hiding mechanisms that spy on the people.
Even though we don't live under a totalitarian government, we still are being monitored for security reasons. Many people are already aware that companies such as Google collect and sell data from their users. We also know that Google began sharing its user's data with the government as the company first started. Many other corporations do the same, and this middleman system allows the government to survey its citizens while not being directly responsible for it.
In the book 1984, anyone who is seen as working against the system is either killed or rehabilitated. While this does not happen today, the media has a large influence over people, and if the media can monitor and track the people using it then I am afraid we are at the point where government surveillance is like that of a totalitarian system.