One way in which panopticism has been embedded in our society is through the caution we take when we use the internet and social media. Although no one is actively watching our every move and monitoring every post, some people still treat social media and their search bar as if someone was watching it. For example, a lot of people don’t like to be super opinionated on social media, in fear of someone important watching them. Personally, I don’t really like to show too much of my actual personality on social media because I always hear about jobs digging up peoples’ personal lives before hiring them or before firing them. Even though this is probably a rare occurrence, it is always in the back of my mind. It is very common for people to remind young people about their image on social media, but I feel like in reality, those people giving out jobs are not searching up Instagram pages as often as I think they are. In addition to social media, the search bar is something that I also second guess on. Sometimes I end up choosing to go without some information just because I don’t want any traces of me searching it up on my phone or computer. The possibility of someone seeing what I search, unless they actually see it on my phone or computer, is very low. However, I have this idea in the back of my mind that the government or some type of authority will pull up my search history and put it on blast one day. This is a sort of outlandish thought, but it is what keeps me from googling everything little thing that comes to my mind.Â
