‘Everything faded away into a shadow world in which, finally, even the date of the year had become uncertain.’

For some reason, while reading 1984 by George Orwell, this quote really stood out to me as the concept of knowledge being something totally based on faith and entirely refutable seemed to mirror the legacy of Humean thought. The idea that human thought could be entirely altered and manipulated based on technique of brainwashing and a Orwell's hypothetical concept of doublethink, a kind of double consciousness which defined human thought and character and governed thought throughout the brain, I could'nt help draw parallels with the animated simulacra saturated culture in which I was a part of.  
The idea of Newspeak, a new, simplified language, making it almost impossible to commit thoughtcrime, resonated with the idea of a new simple, fast world, where seemingly laborious tasks are shortened to make things more practical and humans lazier. 

As cliche as it sounds, the whole idea of Newspeak sounded distantly familiar to the whole use of social media, used to distract the masses from essentially thinking. Or thinking about anything actually tangible nevertheless. ‘Every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller’...‘The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought’. I found this interesting in the sense that it completely encapsulates a lack of self-consciousness, of understanding of one's own place in the world. That detachment becomes almost torturous to a human who naturally searches for human bonds and attachment, to suddenly become so detached from the very crux of reality, is devastating. In this sense, such an uncertain world becomes dangerous, and that uncertainty may be linked to the detachment many teens feel to their own lives, own sense of selves. After all, is it better to suffer, or feel completely numb? Numbness appears to be inescapable and that in itself is torturous. Maybe that's what Orwell meant when he said that, 'orthodoxy means not thinking’. Maybe, to become so much a part of the system, so heavily ingrained in it is a curse within itself. Becoming emerged in the masses, seeking individualism in expression and through your representation of individuality through your social media outlets, which paradoxically and simultaneously are succumbing to the society in which to be torn from you would be devastated. Sometimes, it really does appear to me that ‘Orthodoxy is unconsciousness’, but this orthodoxy may be much less orthodox than you presuppose. Society has taught us that we're all so individual, so free to express ourselves and to pursue our own freely thought out lives, but what if this entire process is governed by something so destructive, controlling and invasive as those powers of social media that now have the ability to govern your whole mind and thought processes, your whole life is lived through a camera and through social approval, as this dissonance creates a complete detachment from external reality and an inner sense of who we are, what happens to our kids then?