Today’s technology has pushed the limits of how far we have believed that man could go. We live in a world where our life can be displayed on a screen and our lives can change with just a touch of a button. Such dependence on devices like cell phones, iPods, social networking sites, and the internet have masked our true identity and made us literally two dimensional figures. But why do we do this? In Bob Mondello’s Our Media, Ourselves: Are We Headed for a Matrix? he proposes the argument: “Once you’ve felt the comfort of society, you worry about losing it. So to remind yourself of how you’re connected, you gather things around. And you cling to them, not so you won’t lose them, or lose what makes you, but so you won’t lose the connecting they represent. The fear is of emptiness – but emptiness inside us, not empty rooms.” We truly are afraid of being empty inside, and updating a status, tweeting, or posting a picture seems to make us feel like we matter. The amount of information that can be placed on one’s iPhone is exponential, yet its size remains compact. As we begin to have less and less personal belongings surrounding us, the amount of ourselves begins to show up on our computer screens and phones. If we were to lose the connections on these devices, we would feel empty and alone on the inside.
E.M. Forster’s short story, The Machine Stops, portrays life in the far future as completely dystopian. Their society is dominated by a technology called the Machine, and it is the basis of everyone’s survival. Citizens lived in their own separate and empty cell-like rooms. With the Machine, anything could be brought to them at a flip of a switch. The main character becomes distressed and Forster writes, “Then she generated the light, and the sight of her room, flooded with radiance and studded with electric buttons, revived her. There were buttons and switches everywhere – buttons to call for food, for music, for clothing. And there were of course the buttons by which she communicated with her friends.” The buttons and switches did not comfort her, but it was the thought that she could use them to connect and identify herself through them. The society eventually dies since the Machine breaks. “We have come back to our own. We die, but we have recaptured life.” The people in this dystopian world were surrounded by each other, struggling with the same problem. They weren’t using the Machine anymore, bringing them back to their natural way of living. However, the idea of not being connected via the Machine killed everyone. The Machine Stops exposes our inner insecurities that tell us that we cannot survive without the technology we have access to today. We would be totally capable of doing so, yet once the idea of this advanced technology has been presented, we believe that going back would mean death.
Some would argue that Mendello’s claims are unrealistic and are too exaggerated. Sure, we use technology more than we ever have, but humans still have an evolutionary drive to interact and build relationships together. We are filled with strong emotions of love, happiness, sadness, and hate, which eventually brings us together. Our curiosity drives us to dig deeper and inquire more about the world surrounding us and the people that are in it. Though Mendello may be on the right track, the extent to which he is claiming may seem a little bit ahead of what’s realistic. Regardless, society today is beginning to believe that in order to maintain a connection to society, we must let go of simple objects and translate them to a screen. Once on a screen, we feel as though we are represented and heard in this big world.
No comments:
Post a Comment