Privates on Parade

As I seem to be in full blown rant mode this week, let's delve a little further into the issues raised in the previous couple of posts. Primarily the growing erosion of any distinction between private and public life, and the general public's love affair with entertainment technology, rather than actual scienctific innovation. In my opinion, the two go hand in hand - whilst many things have fuelled the idea that private lives should be made public, (the advent of 'reality' TV; the increasing use of celebrity and political sex scandals to sell newspapers; not to mention the whole growth of the 'cult of the celebrity'), there can be no doubt that the spread of mobile phones and surveillance cameras has been the real driving force. Once people can reach you absolutely anywhere by phone, then the whole notion of a private life goes out of the window. Suddenley, we are all instantly accessible by work, friends, relations, sales pillocks, at their convenience, rather than yours - you are instantly on call any time of day or night.

Actually, a slight digression here - have I ever mentioned how irritating I find those arseholes who stride around public places with bluetooth headpieces plugged into their ears? Can there be any greater form of self-aggrandisment? I mean, if they were top heart surgeons, directors of multi-million dollar corporations or hostage negotiators, I could understand the need for them to be on-call at a moment's notice. But let's be honest here, the ones you actually see sporting these accoutrements all appear to be dustmen, greengrocers and shoe salesmen - nobody is ever going to either want or need to contact them at a moment's notice! However, by posing around in public with their bluetooth earpieces, these pillocks are saying 'look how important I am - I need to be instantly available! The country would collpase otherwise!" Wankers.

OK, digression over; back to the point. Not only does mobile phone technology make invasions of your private life not just more likely, but inevitable, the latest such technology makes it possible to take pictures, or even videos, of you and send them all over the world. All of a sudden, something you would normally rather keep private, is in the public domain! When this is allied to the growth of surveillance cameras in our shops, streets and workplaces, all reinforcing the idea that is OK to be watched all the time by faceless perverts (face it, who else is going to sign up for a job like that?), then 'private' life as we traditionally knew it, is dead. But where is all this heading? Well, bearing in mind that most of the forms of 'entertainment technology' the public is so infatuated with are either devoted to the efficient delivery of pornography to the individual (the internet, video-enabled mobiles, portable DVD players etc), or the easy manufacture of inexpensive pornograhy (surveillance cameras, PCs, digital cameras, DVD recorders, etc), I'd say it was obvious. The next big thing will be porn movies beamed to your mobile. But not just any porn movies - these'll be porono flicks featuring real people, captured on surveillance cameras - engaged in drunken post-pub/club shagging in back alleys and on car bonnets. 'Happy Slapping' will probably be superceded by gangs of youths peering through bedroom windows, secretly recording their parents or neighbours bonking, and then sharing it with their mates via their mobiles. Maybe that's where we're heading - people recording themselves having sex and then sharing it via bluetooth for the rest of the world to masturbate over - and while they're whacking off over it, they'll probably recird themselves indulging in a hand shandy and share that with the rest of the world! The horror of it all!