No Privacy in America :: George Orwell 1984 Technology Essays

No Privacy in America Feeling the need to be â€Å"at the cutting edge of the new† and â€Å"the first on your block to have it† puts us in a race with ourselves to keep pace with the evolving technological world. Cell phones, e-mail, GPS, EZ-Pass, and the entire World Wide Web – all these inventions enable us to live in a world where people across the planet are only milliseconds away. All these new inventions, however, also have a drawback in common – they serve as locating devices for each and every one of us. Privacy has vanished. 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. Now, as we advance technologically, the thought of Big Brother watching over us isn’t so far-fetched. He could be the government monitoring the actions of you and your family, or he could be your boss at work secretly watching you when you think you’re alone. Or he could even be those closest to you, tracking your every move. Big Brother no longer has to work hard to monitor us, for we’re inadvertently providing his eyes and ears. There’s no question that cell phones are great inventions. I have one and take it with me everywhere I go. â€Å"Never leave home without it,† I tell myself. My cell phone allows me to stay in contact with everyone, all the time. I can call home when I’m out to let my parents know where I am, or I can call my friends to see where we’re going to hang out that night. I even have the New York Yankees scores text-messaged to my cell phone every three innings so I never miss a beat. The benefits of having cell phones are obvious, yet the drawbacks are something to ponder. In this new age of cell phones the concept of â€Å"getting away from it all† has virtually disappeared. When I was visiting a college in April of my senior year in high school, my cell phone rang at least twice each day with people from back home in New Jersey trying to contact me. Sometimes it was my friends calling just to see if I wanted to hang out that night, forgetting that I was 250 miles away.