Auuster's Takeaway

The term ‘Big Brother’ was concepted in this book. In this dystopian world, Big Brother represents the suppressing government. Cameras are installed into everyone’s telescreens and are monitored by the Thought Police. People who do not adhere to the party guidelines or show the slightest doubt in the government will be sent to jail to be corrected.

The books follows a character named Winston as he engages in a forbidden love with Julia. They are discovered by the Thought Police and are arrested. Winston was thoroughly interrogated as the police attempts to get a confession out of him. After rigorous interrogation and brainwashing, he finally gives up Julia and is released back to society. At the end of the book, he meets Julia, but he no longer has love for her; Big Brother wins.

The scary concept in this book is the constant surveillance and indoctrination through media and people. With the current advancements in technology, a camera in each room may become normal. The government has drafted ‘emergency’ bills to give them control of such technologies when the time is needed. Machine learning algorithms and predictive analysis can be used to determine the probability a person will act out-of-line based on their past actions. We are moving closer to technologies capable of constant surveillance, what are the precautions we must take to ensure our lives remain private?