The "Chilling Effect" of Mass Surveillance is Controlling All of Us

Technology has evolved tremendously since we have been in the 21st century. The way we communicate and interact with one another is different as well. We have these social media platforms we interact with each other on as well as through text messages and emails. Since technology is more advanced and the free flow of information is at a click away from your computer, sometimes peoples concerns are with how we are monitored through our own government. 

I do believe this has caused a lot of people, consciously and subconsciously, to not express their own viewpoints on political and economic issues of the world, especially on these social media platforms of fear of being scrutinized when their own points is of the minority. I notice myself not expressing my own opinions though, not only from the fear of being monitored, but also from fear of not having the majority viewpoint. I feel like our media now a days tells us only what we want to hear and creates controversy where they want to create controversy. With us being monitored, this allows them to have control of us and our thoughts and free flow of information. I believe this also goes hand and hand with this generation not actually researching general topics to form different opinions, but going on social media platforms like Facebook, or Twitter, or biased news channels to get their generalized, watered down news. It is a controlling mechanism in my opinion and we each are going to all think alike and act alike, and not express our own thoughts or viewpoints especially when our opinions are not well liked by others. This monitoring and surveillance makes us feel like we have to be like everyone else and be in an autopilot mode.