THE REALITY OF THE TRUMAN SHOW

In the final scene of The Truman Show, Truman Burbank bangs on a massive painted wall in tears. He feels helpless as he is overwhelmed by the realization that his entire life has been staged; hidden cameras have followed and recorded him since birth, broadcasting his life on a 24/7 television show for the whole world to watch.

When I watched The Truman Show in English, Truman’s circumstances felt abstract and implausible in the real world. How could someone’s life be so exposed without masses of people rising up in objection?

After reading a New York Times article called “Major TikTok Security Flaws Found” by Ronen Bergman, Sheera Frenkel, and Raymond Zhong, however, I realized that The Truman Show is more similar to reality than I had thought. Increasingly advanced technologies and the advent of social media pose a serious threat to our privacy, and the popular smartphone app TikTok is one of many examples. According to the article, Tiktok was found susceptible to hackers who could take control over users’ accounts and gain access to users’ personal information.

Online services like TikTok bring to light the same concern that The Truman Show does: the invasion of our privacy. It’s not only Tiktok — Amazon’s Alexa, Google, and Facebook, among others, have also been cited as posing privacy concerns.

Still, there is one key difference between The Truman Show and real life: Truman was unaware that his life was being filmed, but we are able to control the technology that we use. While it’s easy for us to become lured by the entertainment and convenience that new technologies promise, it is crucial for us to take advantage of this control and be aware of our use of technology if we want to protect our privacy. After all, what we often overlook are the severe consequences of blindly accepting technology and providing personal information to online services. TikTok hackers can access your personal information, Amazon’s Alexa is always listening, Google Maps constantly tracks your location, Facebook can gain personally identifiable information — who’s to say it will all be kept safe?

We all deserve our privacy as humans, but the responsibility of protecting our privacy falls into our own hands. How much are we willing to trust online services? Is risking our privacy worth the amusement we derive from these services? These are the questions we need to actively grapple with, in order to ensure that we never become swept into our own Truman Shows.