We don’t need Big Brother, we’ve got Twitter et al
“1984″, a novel written in 1948 about life in 1984 where Big Brother, via a network of cameras, watches everyone’s every move.
Ever since we’ve supposedly supposedly found the concept abhorrent.
Yet roll on 2008 and we don’t need Big Brother, because we’ve got ourselves. We’re willing tell the world constantly about our whereabouts and what we’re doing.
Twitter, which constantly prompts you with the rather Big Brother-esque question, “What are you doing now?”, is the pinnacle of this mad rush to make sure the world knows our every move.
But there’s blogs, and MySpace, and Facebook, and Flickr and so on. Have we become addicted to socialization and sacrificed almost all our privacy? And there’s bluetooth phones that announce your arrival. We indiscriminately splash the net with incriminating words and pictures with little concern for the future they might bring us. People who loose sleep to stay in touch, others who sleep with their Blackberries to never miss anything. GPS co-ordinates attached to our photos.
“I’m me, I’m me, I’m me,” we keep shouting. “Look at me! Listen to me!” we implore. But we are ultimately drowned out by the roar of millions of others.
And then there’s folks like me, those with Aspergers, who don’t share this uncontrollable lust for uber-socialization, who don’t get Facebook or Twitter. And we stand back and ask “What the hell is going on? Where will it end?” (Sure I’ve got an iPhone, but as I say, I don’t use it fulfill a socialization lust.)
Is the whole world going mad with socialization-lust?
I just want to go and sit on a hill somewhere, far from the maddening din of Twitter and its peers.
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