techNOlogy

PART 1 : The current communication technology that I am choosing is surveillance satellites. Although there are many positive aspects of surveillance satellites, there are also negatives. These satellites can be considered an invasion of privacy. When Google used satellites to produce a map of a street view, people were caught doing things that they would not have intended for others to see. These actions consisted of hopping over fences and walking out of strip clubs. It is human nature to want privacy and with these high tech devices, people's privacy can be invaded.


PART 2 : The current communication technology of surveillance satellites is most like the telescreen in the novel 1984. The telescreen is used by the Party to see what people are doing and to hear what they are saying. The purposes of satellites today are not used mainly for surveillance as they were in 1984. Today, satellites are used to help citizens, not make them feel uncomfortable or angry. Satellites are used for television, cellular phones, the internet, radio, observation of land and water, navigation such as the GPS. Satellites are also used largely in the scientific field to monitor natural phenomena such as clouds, glaciers, sea ice, deserts, and tropical rainforests. This information can give valuable data to scientists regarding future climate changes and the such. However, in 1984, the telescreen was used to exploit Winston and Julia at the place he rented above the little shop. The telescreen was something that could not be avoided even if they tried. "It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime...(Orwell 42). It is obvious that with their capture and with the pain afflicted upon them, they would rather not have the telescreen there. Just like the telescreen, surveillance satellites can also be used to watch people.


PART 3 : I do not think that there are communication technologies that are essentially dangerous. All technologies are designed to have a purpose that is beneficial to humans. There is no technology whatsoever that is developed to be negative to the human race; otherwise it would not be developed. It depends on the way that a communication technology is used which contributes to the effect that it has on the people using it. I think that cultural determinism has an effect on surveillance satellites. The culture produces need for this sort of techonology.