The world is constantly changing, adapting and expanding with all technological advancements over time. All these new improvements created by man has allowed for us to live an advanced and easier life more or less. But most things have their pros and cons. Technology for example has helped connect the whole world together and makes the process of things go by fast. Its cons has been creating a generation that is easier and very dependant on the use of internet and technology over time…
Technology and the media try and cover up the downside of changes that go on around us everyday. Sugar coating the bad and covering up with different world problems or new trends to catch our attention. M.T Anderson wasn’t far from the truth with Feed. This world where a microchip in your brain connect you to unlimited internet access while also having an effect to one’s memories, thoughts and emotions. This feed is what lead Violet to losing a year’s worth of memories, stories, experiences..
Titus had to fill in the missing pieces for her. Be that support system she needed that the feed damaged and prevented her from doing it herself.
The feed is made so one can be so dependant on it that it had become vital to one’s life.
We are basically heading toward that kind of life right now. Being so reliant on technology and using so much of the internet a day. It’s something we are guilty about. I mean the first thing I do when I wake up is look at my phone and it’s also the last thing i look at before I go to sleep. We might as well have our phones implanted in our hand with the amount of time we use our phone..
Nowadays we rely on our phones to store pictures and videos of moments and it store our “memories”. I know that if it wasn’t for icloud and using facebook, only for storage of pictures, that I’d forget a lot of little things that has happened in my life.
This world that Titus lives in is so technology dependant and advanced that making babies the natural way is called “freestyle”. Kids are not conceived but parents use “conceptionariums” which is like a incubator that makes the baby outside of the womb. People basically do that now with “designer genes” picking out which sex or features one wants their child to have or not have. I mean they don’t even get high with weed like how people do now a days.. They get “mal” and get high electronically do too a malfunction with their feed. These people have completely eliminated what hippies in the 70s are known for!
This dystopian society in Feed is all about corporate power and consumerism. If 73% of the world’s population had this feednet planted in them it’s no wonder that the corporations that created this “feed” has taken over society, education and they way people communicate with one another. It might have even had the kind of power that could purposely defect one’s feed to really do some damage on a person that tried to resist it like Violet and those hackers did...
Trying to tamper with others’ feed got these hackers beaten to death and eventually the death of Violet. This feed completely messed with Violets ability to move or speak.The only positive use of the feed in the end of the book was Violet using what was left useful of the feed to communicate with Titus. In order for her to die peacefully or at least try to, Violet still had to rely on the very device that was killing her. The feed is what allowed her to tell Titus all the things she wished she did while slowly dying and being brain dead. It had the power to determine what kind of people to be friends with depending on personalities and even death…
This’s a crazy example of how much corporate power this dystopian world has. Corporations can have such effect in people that it could even reverse adaptations from evolution. For instance, in the movie Wall-E, the humans don’t know how to walk, eat food that’s in a milkshake form and can be right next to each other but communicate via holograms (like facetime) and it’s all because of how technology dependant they have become.
Reading Feed reminded me so much of this movie with the character “Auto” because it tried to manipulate the captain into believing that there was no chance of any life on earth. The captains that are basically the leader of everyone in the spaceship have only ever acted on what this robot is programmed to do.
Even the constant advertisement that goes on in the movie with people changing the color of their suits, food smoothie to how they even teach babies the alphabet using the company that made every robot and the Axium spaceship. The feed corporations are puppet masters of humanity since they basically influence people due to how much they get “bannered” with advertisement interruptions in their brain.
The feed corporations run the society and consumerism at an all time high to the point that Titus’ thoughts were interrupted by little commercials popping into his brain.
This is book also reminds me a lot of the movie Eagle Eye in the sense that technology is so advanced that is can control so much that a military computer software basically controlling the main characters’ actions leading them to become the most wanted fugitives and threatening their loved ones and manipulating them to do what this system tells it to do leading to many casualties in order for this computer to override the military.
Violet and the hackers were examples of what probably happened to anyone who tried to inflict with the feed. I mean Violet always felt that something wasn’t right having the feed in her brain. Other than the fact that her parents couldn’t afford the feed, they hesitated for 7 years because they were morally against it. Knowing what I know about technology today, I would be hesitant letting my future children use any form of technology at a young age too.
We as humans are made up of more than just water and organs but we have a brain that does so much including having thoughts, memories and emotions.. The feed in a sense has tainted a person’s free will to pretty much live.
I don’t know about you but that's the thing I love the most about being a person; being able to have thoughts and feel all types of emotions... I believe that is it is what makes us all connect despite everyone's differences. It’s what makes us human…
I don’t think I could live in a world where I wouldn’t be able to experience sadness along with the happiness. I love that cry over the most stupid things. Most of my friends even say that I’m an emotional ass person. You could find me crying because of a movie or show; many people do. I feel like one needs to experience sadness or heartbreak in order to get the experience of being a person… Being in touch with all forms of emotion, all parts of being...
Even in this crazy world that has evolved, Titus sees Violet and is hooked on her instantly. The feed being in his brain doesn’t stop one from feeling an attraction to a person.It still blocks him from being free in the mind but Violet opens his eyes and makes him realize that he doesn’t need the feed. That the feed only causes harm and it gives his the ability to turn away from his dependance of The Feed.
No one should have to depend on something so much to the point that it prevents you from being having your own desires, thoughts and aspirations.. I don't think I could ever take a chance on that or my health to have "unlimited internet access" in my brain. There's clearly so much risk at hand to invest in The Feed which includes death. I know I wouldn't be able to take a risk like that but would you? Could you?
Leslie C
1,375 words
Sources: Feed by M.T Anderson
Wall E (movie)
Eagle Eye (movie)
No comments:
Post a Comment