Is Big Brother REALLY watching?

For the past 10 weeks I, Harriet Jones, have been religiously watching Big Brother, channel four's amazingly addictive reality show. And, for the past 10 weeks I have been fighting the BB case to all other reality t.v non believers. These non believers come in all ages, be it my dad or the country set down at the stables, they all scoff at my daily question, 'Did you watch Big Brother last night?' And, for 10 weeks, my closing argument has been 'well if you were studying sociology you may take interest' this i find seems to always work; but it struck me today - do these people actually provide the world with any ground braking social information? Or is it just 13 (sorry 16 including Orla, Kinga and Eugene!) people living it up for free for 11 weeks? People so uninteresting that the only kind thing to the rest of the world is to lock them up together, occasionally giving them a task to keep the ratings up?
The whole show stemmed off George Orwells classic nineteen eighty four,a book so dull that i sadly never reached the end (however Sparknotes.com provided me with enough info to occasionally quote from it in desperate social situations - i do reccomend it!)
And the contestants of BB are far from the shying, oppressed people of Oceania - 16 attention seekers all vying for my attention and votes. I say that BB needs to be toughened up if it's going to top my 'to see' list, bring on randomised contesent selection - 13 people pulled off the streets, prehaps the odd ex-con. That'll liven it up - but then again the people of 1984 never had to put up with Kinga the Minga!