Friday, February 11, 2011

Feed


Thoreau’s Walden, was very fascinating to read. The idea behind Thoreau’s experiment, I think, was a great idea, but would be hard to give up your life, as you know it for an entire year. Honestly, I do not think someone could do that now. As a whole society, we have become so reliant on technology. To give up even one type of technology seems mind boggling to most people. I know that I would have a hard time even giving up just my cell phone.
            At first, Feed seemed very extreme to me, but the more comparisons I made to society today, I realized it is not quite as far fetched as I first thought. We are not as reliant on our technology as the characters in Feed, but I do think that we are headed down that path. We do not have actual Feeds in our brains, but I do believe that we are very much controlled by the media and popular culture. There is so much money spent on researching us all to shape advertisements to appeal to us, just like the Feed’s do to the characters in Feed. Whether we all choose to believe it or not, we like what we are told to like, and do what we are told is cool to do. Even those who consider themselves “non-conformists” have things made just for them by the media. I do not believe that any one of us is entirely unique. I just wonder who is to blame for this.
slj0905_featTeenMag_open.jpg

6 comments:

  1. I agree that it would be hard for society now to give up technology for a year seeing that we are so reliant on it. Feed was a great read and I agree that we are not as extreme as the characters in Feed but we are starting to head down that path, which is scary to think. Its also scary to think that we like what we are told to like, because we do it unconsciously.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It's hard to do much of anything on the Internet without "google" or "facebook" reading our interests and trying to sell us something. The age of "personalized" advertisements is most definitely here...has been for a long time.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't our technology will ever be as extreme as in feed but I'm sure we'll be able to receive the information just as fast. Just the fact that the devices were inside their brain is enough of a reason to stay away from it. I read an article a while ago about how a guy was able to hack a mac in 2 minutes. I don't want that happening to my brain. hackers are always looking for new things to hack and I think as soon as they see that people have computers in their brains it would just be a matter of time until people don't have control over themselves.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I agree that some people could never go away for a year from all society and technology. My dad has lived at our cabin for 2 weeks already, and he loved it, but our generation I do not think could ever do that. Its good to get away for a little, but after a while it would get old and boring in my opinion

    ReplyDelete
  5. I agree, I think we are more similar to the characters and society in Feed than most of us realize. A lot of our generation does rely on technology everyday. I hope it doesn't get to the extreme case like in the book though.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Even though our society is not necessarily as absorbed in technology as the characters in Feed, it is scary to think that we might some day become that dependent. I'm definitely addicted to my cell phone also. I feel like I'm always doing something on there or looking something up online for information. I can't imagine giving everything up for a year.

    ReplyDelete