In George Orwell’s dystopia “1984”, there is a TV in each house which records every action of its tenants. Not a single moment of their lives is free from government control. The observation is constant and endless. How optimistic of Orwell to describe things like that!

While in the book, the government has installed these TVs by force, in real life people put them in their homes voluntarily.

It all began with the cameras. People not only agreed to be recorded on the streets but asked for it themselves. They threw away their freedom with ease in the name of “security”. They gave access to their lives to strangers. And their justification was: “I don’t do anything wrong, I have nothing to be afraid of.” But isn’t the fact that the government can find out whether you have bought orange juice or pineapple juice from the shop a supreme humiliation? Doesn’t everything inside you scream against this?

People give away their fingerprints as items on a garage sale. Passport controls, airports, or hospitals – it doesn’t matter. All medical samples and tests are being kept in databases. But do people really lack a sense of ownership even over their DNA?

All private information of an individual can be found on his computer. Google, Instagram, and Facebook summarize their whole life. Personal information, correspondence, interests, everything. People upload their photos and experiences on social media as if they are begging the killer-of-souls system to pick them because they are beautiful and interesting. They exhibited their entrails at the garbage dump and did not care who will dig into them afterwards.

But this wasn’t enough. Later, TikTok appeared as well. People turned their lives into a live entertainment show for anyone. Their days are now publicly owned. Currently, the predator wanders invisibly in the forests but when the victim tries to run for freedom it will find out that it has revealed all of its secret paths.

Still, there are brief periods of time which one spends offline. For this reason, they created smartphones and smart TVs. Wikileaks’ discoveries did not change anything. People ignored them and continued to fall down the abyss.

We currently live in 1983. After 1984, there won’t be another year. The future comes only if there is someone to live it.