Feed, A Futuristic Novel

In the novel Feed written by M.T. Anderson, the futuristic world the novel is set in a continually evolving and the characters are overcoming challenges in the technological society. This book focuses on the deteriorating world due to technological advances. The most important technological advancement is the “feed” that the corporations in the future will create. The “feed” contributes to how people participate in everyday activities. Only people who can afford one are able to have a “feed” implant. It is a parallel to today’s modern use of technology and cellular devices. Titus, the protagonist, is a teenager that comes from a wealthy family and is he grows up extremely privileged. He and his friends go to the moon for spring break.

Today, phones play a major role in individuals. In “How Smartphones Hijack Our Minds,” Nicholas Carr uses straightforward diction, studies, and figurative language such as, personification to reveal that individuals are powerless without their phones. Throughout the reading he explained how the brain grows dependent on phone technology, the intellect weakens.

One of the most significant aspect of the negative effects of technology is the lack of empathy and emotion shown by the characters in ‘Feed’. The society in ‘Feed’ have been raised in a world were the need to show emotion and empathy has vanished. The requirement of talking face to face is taken away as everything is done digitally, through the feed. The characters are paying more attention to the ‘bannering’ in their heads than their surroundings, thus reducing the skill empathy and emotion. When Titus goes to visit Violet when the feed has forced her into a ‘vegetable’ state, he recognised that the

Technology, the advancement of knowledge and productivity through the application of tools, information, and techniques to create an effortless process, has ultimately lead to the declination of our society and our future. In “A Thing Like Me,” Nicholas Carr addresses the development of technology from the day it was created and how it initiated an immediate impact within the lives of humans leading to an unhealthy dependency. Carr establishes how technology, what was intended to be a tool, has become the “pacifier” of our generation. This “pacifier” causes a loss of freedom, not through the laws of the government, but rather with the values of freedom one holds within themselves. This freedom is the individuality that distinguishes each person from the next, and forms a desire for the development of oneself through the experiences of life and the wisdom that is acquired along the way. Technology has blinded man from this pursuit of self-enhancement and with the advancement of technology occurring daily, there is no resolution. Each day people are confined within themselves and the pieces of technology that will continually limit them in their lives. Freedom is more than just a concept of laws instilled by the government, it is the thought process found within each individual person and their “hunger” to become more. With technology, social media was created and immediately immersed within our lives. The society of today has

One of the fears that Anderson expresses in his novel is the fear of dependence by humans on technology such as the feed. He shares it with the audience in the interactions that his characters have with the feed. Everyone in his novel is connected

“In the last 50 years, up to 100,000 Americans lost their lives due to inactivity leading to some sort of conditional disease such as heart disease [including the laziness within people of society]” (Wise 12). So many people have died from becoming lazy, doing nothing but go on their phones, devices, rather than doing everyday things. Technology has changed the way society approaches life, always depending on it rather than themselves and others. The society today consists of nothing but TV screens, telephone, smartphones, iPads, and items the 19th century would consider a dream to lay hands on. A book written by Bradbury presents lack of effort people put into their lives and society; Bradbury predicts how the future will become later on in the society. Becoming more similar to the laziness and ignorance in the novel, Fahrenheit 451, the society today struggles the society today struggles with dependency on technology which results to lack of social interactions with one another and failure in becoming literate with books.

Diagnosing the Digital Revolution by Alison Gopnik argues “whether social robots and internet communication it’s really changing us”. The author begins by taking the audience back to the story when a little girl at the age of 2 was given a device that was explained mysteriously until it was revealed later as a book. The girl would smuggle the book into school and hide it under her desk to read it later. Motionless for hours was another thing she did with The Device. She disputes how she grew up with a prints and explains that she almost feels like she has been plugged in to the device for quite a while, because the device has been around her whole life. The real transformation comes when the device changes from a print into a

ELIZA software was used in helping to treat mental illnesses: patients were able to talk to a machine instead of a psychotherapist. The outcome of this experiment showed that if the patient couldn’t tell whether he or she was talking to a computer, the computer is just a valuable as a therapist. Carr uses this to argue and prove that people can be easily replaced by technology.

An era that was just getting used to color TVs and watches. Bradbury still manages to make several predictions about mankind’s technological advancement, which do come true. In this current generation, using technological devices is inevitable. They have become a part of us, as we need them in our everyday life. Asking someone today to stay a day without their smartphones is like asking the impossible from them. When people have a choice between an actual conversation and virtual conversation, surprisingly a large number of people seem to be more comfortable in having a virtual conversation on their smartphones than an actual one. This is where Bradbury’s greatest fears comes to life. The one thing that Bradbury made very clear through his book is that media separates people from the reality. Bradbury would be astonished to see how people spent almost an entire day on social media. His lead character Montag has everything in his life except human connection, and without human connection you can never truly be happy. Artificial Intelligence is one of the biggest success we have had in this century. From mobile phones to our cars, we use artificial intelligence everywhere. Bradbury would definitely be enlightened to know about how much we have accomplished from artificial intelligence, but he would also have the constant fear of mankind falling prey to their inevitable destiny of making mistakes and turning into ashes before they

Technology may not be everything it seems. Although worldwide use of various devices and applications has revolutionized the way we live and our culture in a powerful and helpful way, there are many ramifications to be considered. The consequence to this revolution of culture and way of life is carefully observed and portrayed by M.T. Anderson in his novel Feed. Anderson uses the literary art of satire to create characters that are exaggerated versions of people today to reveal their uncontrollable obsession with technology.

M.T Anderson’s novel, Feed and the film Kingsman: The Secret Service directed by Matthew Vaughn, challenge attitudes and beliefs through the interactions with others. Through the use of positive and negative communication, attitudes and beliefs have been challenged through the interactions between the main characters in both Feed and Kingsman: The Secret Service. Anderson and Vaughn explore interactions through the way individuals live, interact and communicate in a range of social situations.  Feed is a satirical novel and depicts a dystopian society where privacy does not exist and mind control is taken for granted. Kingsman: The Secret Service shows inventive technology and shows levels of satire, both Feed and Kingsman: The Secret Service

In Anderson’s Feed, most of the American population is joined to the internet with chips implanted into their brains. This might not be the first science fiction novel to explore the idea that the internet is in our brains, but it does so with an awareness of how that might affect our planet and our biological being in a very visceral, fleshy way. The feed is destroying the planet and interrupts common, basic biological functions. Not only are humans themselves decaying and humanity ceasing to exist, but even the planet has become so polluted that it cannot sustain or support it natural cycles or maintain many populations of wildlife.

In the futuristic world M.T Anderson creates in Feed, the misuse of technology is a problem the world faces. The novel Feed describes how the world could be in the future if humans let technology rule their lives. Anderson wants the reader to realize the effect technology has on our lives, and he also wants us to understand how we are being controlled and manipulated by media. Therefore, Anderson, fearing that one day technology will surpass humanity by creating a society of idiots like in the novel Feed, warns the reader from the future our society might face if we don’t make a change soon.

Societies, around the world, have always had the desire to control their members and manipulate their reality. With the help of technology, this might be achieved easier than previously believed. Using something as ordinary as your phone will give the government access to one-way constant and unauthorized surveillance. Your phone is also a way for media outlets and corporations to get you to purchase their products by constantly bombarding you with ads about things that you might be interested in. Since using our phones and seeing ads are so familiar to us, we don’t truly realize how the government and media outlets are manipulating and spying on us. Works of fiction such as The Truman Show and Neuromancer, have attempted to defamiliarize these concepts by showing them at work on a larger scale. Both protagonists, Truman and Case, respectively, have fallen victim to manipulated realities and unauthorized surveillance. Authority figures, in these works, are using

Society today possesses an over-reliance on technology. Advancements in technology paved the way for the formation of new applications and forms of social media that potentially lead to the loss of the intimacy of communication and personal relationships among users. As a result of the ease of communication through technology, face-to-face interaction rarely occurs anymore. Long before technology began advancing at a rapid pace, authors used their medium of writing to comment on the dangers of relying on technology too excessively. E.M. Forster’s short story, “The Machine Stops,” written in 1909, highlights a dilemma that society’s over-reliance on technology created between virtual connectivity and face-to-face interaction. That over-reliance, perfect for the futuristic, dystopian society in “The Machine Stops,” also serves as a cautionary tale for the technological culture of today.