In this year of 2024, once ominous aspects from Orwell’s “1984″ do not bother us now. They are incorporated into our daily lives.
For instance my daughter and I talked about my grandson’s driving habits.
She said, “His sister complains about his driving, but it really isn’t fast. I know because I check his speed with an app on my phone. I also track where he drives with my phone.”
It so reminded me of “1984” that I said, “Be careful what you do, Big Brother is watching.”
I doubt that he has read it but that novel spooked me as a teenager of the 1960s. At that time 1984 seemed like forever away. When 1984 came, hints of Big Brother existed but nothing like it does in 2024. With CCTVs at the check-outs in stores and outside around businesses and stores, we accept their ubiquitous surveillance as normal.
Cell phones’ tracking our every movement and location ensure that Big Brother can find us anywhere. Since most people keep their phones with them at all hours of the day, even activities they intend to do in secret are revealed.
For instance, last year police tracked a string of barn burnings in Indiana and Michigan with the pings to cell phone towers from the arsonist’s phone. No calls, just towers recognizing the presence of the same phone around each fire. The arsonist thought no one was looking but Big Brother recorded his phone’s presence every time.
In the past we could pass a note in class, tear it to shreds, burn it, or eat it and the message disappeared. Not so for my daughter’s teens. She checks their texted communication. Her persistence nips immature ideas in the bud and has prevented a poor decisions.
Still, I did not realize Big Brother also watched me until our recent car wreck. I failed to be an alert backseat driver that day, let alone a “Big Sister.” Hubby said the car ahead appeared to slow down or stop on the six-lane Interstate. After the noise and haze of smoke from three airbags exploding, many stopped to check on us, the police came, the emergency vehicles came, the wrecker came. The man in the wrecker agreed to take us to his office where my daughter met us and took us to rent a car.
As we rode to meet her, my husband commented to the driver of the tow truck, “the little black box under the seat makes a big difference for wrecks now compared to when you first began towing wrecked cars doesn’t it? That box records a lot of information.”
“I don’t know. I never heard of that,” the guy said.
Curious about the Big Brother of traffic accidents, I took out my phone and googled, “little black box, car wreck and information.” The brief description verified. Big Brother had watched the crash, and if a court case were opened or the insurance needed to see information about the accident they could access the data saved in the black box.
Okay, I knew that my phone tracks my location, listens in on conversations, looks over my shoulder when I shop and reads my email. I now also know that Big Brother is hiding under the seat of 95 percent of the vehicles built since the 2012. It retains useful information just before and after an accident: speed, throttle position, brake usage, seatbelt locked, airbags deployed and other relevant information. The data can be accessed by investigators, law enforcement or insurance companies.
All this without happens and fulfills another aspect of Orwell’s prophetic novel “1984.” We don’t call it Big Brother. We say closed circuit TV, tracker app, Event Data Recorder (EDR), voice recognition or Alexa. Nonetheless Big Brother has arrived and expands his presence every day.