Imagine a day without using modern technology. We could not use the Internet to search the information we need we could not make phone calls to family thousands of miles away. Technology gives us the ability to access the information in the blink of an eye. Society has become accustomed to the efficiency that technology brings to our lives, but we never consider the negative effects of technology. For instance, social media it is a great way to express our emotions but that expression may also leaking our information to other people. The relationship between power and technology is central to Foucault's work because one cannot exist without the other. Panopticism can be applied to social structures such as the school system, the military, or industry. Under certain social structures, people expected to self-control. 

In the essay, the panopticon develops from the need for surveillance in the plague. In theory the panopticon should have helped people to survive the disease and should have protected society; though the panopticon has a down side in that it allows power to operate more efficiently. The efficient power they have will causing us losing the freedom, because they are capable doing the things that they can not do it before. For instance, during the plague, everyone is ordered to stay indoors, each street has it own syndic, who keeps everyone under control. The syndic has to lock the door of each house from outside, and then he takes the key and handing it over to the intendant of the quarter. In the story, Foucault says, "Thus allowing each person to receive his ration without communicating with the suppliers and other residents"(Foucault 240).  Each individual is fixed in his place, if he moves; he gets the punishment from the government because the government has to make sure others "safety". These are very organized chain actions during the plague and it does protect the people. But the down side is these actions turn each home to prisons. In the story, the prisoner is analyzed and observed in a circular building. It is a permanent and functional structure. Foucault points out that schools, military, or hospitals are organized along the panopticion structure. In Panopticon, people are expected to self-control. 

Factories in China have hundreds of workers. Picture an individual's working space in the shape of square where the worker works on a side of the square and the space between each side is for managers to observe and assess the quality of the worker's labor. This is example of Panopticion structure in modern day. The space between the sides of the square is designed to let workers know that someone will examine their work. In situations in which people are knowingly under watchful eye, people tend to follow rules without hesitation, afraid to make any mistakes form fear of consequence. The manger "watcher" may not understand how to make cloth, for example, but he does understand his position to oversee product and labor quality. One person only know how to do one step of the work, if something goes wrong, people will find exactly who does it. People divide in to groups will improve the efficiency, but on the other hand, they are losing the freedom.  In the story, Foucault talks about, "To include in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assure the automatic functioning of power. So to arrange things that the surveillance is permanent in its affect, even if it is discontinuous in its action"(Foucault 245). Same as the factory, workers feel the pressure from the surveillance. The feeling of "examined" keeps them on focus of what they are doing even no one examine on them.

For most of us, Internet is the definition of the freedom. On the social media, we register an account with our name, gender, and dates of birth, etc, giving us the "freedom" to voice opinions without reprimand. Yet, this free speech on social media can expose our personal lives to anyone looking for information. According Foucault's Panopticism, "This Panopticon, subtly arranged so that an observer may observe, at a glance, so many different individuals, also enables everyone to come and observe any of the observers. The seeing machine was once a sort of dark room into which individuals spies; it has become a transplant building in which the exercise of power may be supervised by society as whole"(Foucault 249).  Each person has the ability to look up others as long as they can get to Internet. Our lives become more transparent then the time we don't have the technology. 
