Telescreens- 1984

"Only the Thought Police mattered. Behind Winston's back the voice from the telescreen was still babbling away about pig iron and the over-fulfillment of the Ninth Three-Year Plan. The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained withing the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being wathced at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Though Police plugged in on any individual wire. IT was eve conceivable they watched everybody all the time."p.2-3

Telescreens to me, seem conceivable especially in this day and age. If we can have cameras designed to look like inauspicious household articles and wiretapping, then telescreens are nothing. That is kind of scary. The fact of the matter is, a lot of what was predicted in this novel is now true or at least plausible. There is a potential for many of the methods of government control portrayed in this novel. Furthermore, I feel that the being watched every second of one's life, though useful as a scare tactic by the government, could have the potential to lead to a revolt. These screens do contribute a great part to the disagreement many seem to hold with the government's reign. All in all, I believe the telescreen is one of the means by which the government best holds their position of power. They are always present, a constant reminder of the "watching" that the citizens experience. The ability for a government to do this is thus unsettling in many ways.