Social Networks: The Surveillance Of Panopticon Prisons

Social networks have become apart of most people’s daily lives in todays society. Some people tend to grab their phones when waking up in the morning instead of grabbing the daily newspaper. Social networks not only have a huge impact on most lives, but it changes the way people interact and how they keep in touch with their friends and family. People tend to communicated through Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. As social networks arise the surveillance increases the more people that are using social networks together information. People assume they are free but a panopticon lens creates no privacy among free people that are not incarcerated because of social networks. Social networks today take away people’s privacy and freedom

The theory behind this idea of somebody of power watching all the time brings to light the concept of a panopticon. The surveillance among people is shifting from prison to the outside world leaving no privacy nor freedom. The focus was based off of panopticon prison having a brilliant structure that allowed guards to be able to see from every corner through the way the lighting was setup as well as the inmate’s cell. The purpose for this was to watch the inmates alone in their cells through the central tower as well as other guards watching outside the tower implementing behaviors on certain inmates, but the main reason for all this was to unionize and clearly verbalize behavioral norms in objective to alter an inmate’s

The positives of having social networks is a way people can communication, share common interests and share the same desires. The way people communicate with one another is through a computer screen rather than face to face it is easier and a faster way communicate. The expansion of social networks has become so vast in choices that a person can fit in to any social network giving opinions to search. Social networks permit freedom by have power among a panoptic lens of modern society by giving options to choose. A person can look and have knowledge and be able to look back through the panoptical lens since the panopticon is not as hidden as it was before. Fewer people are in the tower as for the outer world there are more such as Facebook, it is a form of social coordination. A Facebook user is able to create a sense of identity by customizing information about themselves that a user wants others to see. A great way to use social networks is by exploiting the panoptical lens through online pirating, hacking, and through not using social networks. The privacy of an online user will always be observed by those since the risk is always there most users are confined to this