“Big Brother is Watching You” proclaim the posters in George Orwell’s classic novel 1984 about a totalitarian society controlled by an omnipresent government.  Ever since that time, when the words “big” and “brother” are mentioned together people instinctively envision themselves being monitored, and thus controlled, by the government.  An example of the paranoia brought about by Orwell’s concept here in England is the extensive use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras.  The actual number of CCTVs currently in operation in the UK vary widely from 1.5 million, as quoted by the CCTV User Group, to upwards of 4.2 million, which is the number most widely used and listed on the UK Home Office Crime Reduction website.  The exact number is irrelevant though as the real importance here is what the CCTVs are supposed to remind everyone of, and that is we are always being watched, whether we want to or not.  However, in this example, a law-abiding citizen should have no fear of CCTVs as they are designed to help spot criminals (ie. terrorists, hooligans, general crazy people), keep everything in order on a broad scale and allow daily public life to proceed normally.  But as we pass the 50th anniversary of the publication of Orwell’s book (and the 25th anniversary of when this future should have happened), “Big Brother” is indeed now a reality and watching over everyone, crazies and regular citizens alike, but it isn’t an overbearing, evil government using CCTVs.

No, “Big Brother” is us, as in all of us.

Since the advent of the commercial World Wide Web in 1994, we have slowly started accumulating massive amounts of electronic information about ourselves.  Just over the past 5 years alone we have seen an explosion of social media sites such as Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter and as Web 2.0 quickly gains momentum, so too does our loss of privacy regarding, among other things, what we do in our daily lives.

Have you tried to Google yourself lately?  If not, try it and see what turns up.  I’m sure there is much more information out there than you think you know or want to have available for all to see.  And if it’s not you specifically who turns up in the search, it is information about someone else in the world.  But regardless of who it is, the fact remains that the information is there, it is retrievable and it will probably stay out there for a very long time.  Even though the internet has revolutionized communications, becoming the ultimate medium by which thoughts, messages and interactions can be sent instantaneously across the globe, with all this information being recorded and easily obtainable the question now becomes: Should we be mindful of the consequences of our actions so that others may not judge us?  In essence, are we, as a society, starting to police ourselves?  And if not, should we be?

One such consequence of all this information being available might be related to your career.  According to a recent study by CareerBuilder, forty-five percent of employers use social networking sites to screen candidates during the application process.  However, the surprising bit is that just a year ago the number of employers performing this task was only twenty-two percent.  That’s an increase of 104% in just one year, which is incredible.  The problem doesn’t just stop with the information contained on social networks though as the inclusion of video cameras in mobile phones and other multimedia devices such as the MP3 player (for example, the new Apple iPod Nano) and the explosion of GPS-enabled devices have only compounded the issue of tracking and recording your every move.  Now its only a matter of time when there will be a real-time location-tracking social network, with pictures and videos being taken around your area at that exact moment, to keep everyone up-to-date of exactly what you are doing and where you are.  This site would then have the potential to actually turn into “Big Brother”.

So, while Orwell had it all wrong and 1984 came and went without his dystopian vision of the future, there is one important concept from his book that does apply today.  And that is someone is always watching….