Panopticon

The Panopticon is an idea that seems almost scary. In this idea everyone is watched by those with power. They call this surveillance. Faucault’s final remarks say, “Our society is not one of spectacle, but of surveillance,” (101). In today’s world we see this, especially in media. We are constantly aware of the notion of people able to track us and keep up with what we are doing, wherever we are. Those with the power are the ones doing the tracking. We have GPS devices in cars, we have ways of tracking what people spend money on, we can track where you have been on the internet, we have ways of tracking cell phone calls, we even have the ability to track where people are based on their cell phone location. When Faucault says our society is not a spectacle he means it is not one where anyone can do anything. We are not just going places, but we are actually being watched and kept track of. With technology changes so much today it is very scary how we have the ability to keep track of where people are and what they say. I heard there was a new phenomenon where you can get the text messages that you send to your cell phone bill. The idea of privacy is ultimately gone. It will be interesting to see how the media and technology keep incorporating this idea of the panopticon.