Based on my understanding of Foucault’s discussion of panopticism, one way in which panopticism has been embedded in our society is through online surveillance. Our activity online is being monitored constantly. They’re watching things like what we browse on the internet, they see the interactions that we make while we’re on social media, and also any type of communication we do via phone calls, text messages, emails, etc. All the things they collect from this is used to see things that we prefer, trends, or the behaviors of us. As far as preferences, they use the things they collect from that just so it can somehow pop up on an ad one day while we’re scrolling, it’s one of the weirdest things ever. They even use the data they get from text messages or phone calls and make it somehow pop up on an ad somewhere.
In reality, anything we do is being watched someway somehow. They have CCTV cameras that are used on streets, red lights, etc. Those cameras are also another way that they keep track of us. You also have workplaces that that use surveillance to monitor their employees. They use it to watch their phone calls, messages, emails, etc. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, there’s a big chance that there’s some time of surveillance being used. It’s crazy to think about because it’s not like we ever just fully content to the things they’re doing to track us and watch our behavior, it’s just something that’s normal and something we don’t even really think about until we actually sit down and talk about it like we’re doing on our blog posts. These are just some examples of how Foucault made panopticism seem. It shows how in contemporary society there’s multiple surveillance mechanisms and it changes the way people will act.