The Telescreen in My Pocket
The telescreen in my pocket does not need to watch me. I hand it the day in screenshots, willingly.
Reading 1984 in Form 5 felt less like a warning and more like a mirror with the angle wrong. Orwell imagined a State that demanded the camera; he didn't have to imagine a generation that would buy one and tilt it toward themselves.
Winston rebels by writing in a diary. I am writing this in a Google Doc that autosaves to a server I will never see. He believes 2+2=4. I believe my likes count.
The book asks what privacy is for. I keep arriving at the same answer, but quietly, in case the algorithm overhears: privacy is the room in which I become a person before I become a performance.
So: a small rebellion. This essay will not be posted anywhere. It exists, like Winston's diary, mostly so I can find out what I think.