The Digital Age

Alright let's get right to it. I know for a fact that almost 90 percent of the human population is on their phone for most of the day. Okay, maybe not 90 percent of humans, but it is a very high number. Don't lie, you know your on your phone all day. There is no hiding the fact that we, as a society, have a problem. We can not go an hour without looking at social media or checking to see if we have a text message. In other words humans are addicted to the digital age. Don’t get me wrong, I am not hating on or bashing on the advancements in technology or the digital society that us, humans, live in today. There are many connections that can be made between the book Feed and the digital age of today. This book is driving home the nail so to say with the human population being “controlled” by such things as cell phones and the internet. In the book, there are occurrences such as digital pop ups, any information being found within seconds, and a reliance on a chip implanted in the brain of the beholder. Interesting isn't it? Sounds like something you may experience in your day to day life. Except the chip, of course. When I walk into a classroom at my university, almost every person in that room is using their cell phone. Why is that? Are we as people addicted? Or do we all have chips in our brain. Just kidding. Maybe. Anyway, in Feed the characters such as Titus experience pop ups, just as if we were searching the internet and a advertisement showed up on the screen. In the first 20 pages of this book there is an example of a “pop up”. A pop up comes out of nowhere that gives Titus an ad about what I believe to be a rocketship of some sorts (Anderson 15). It is very interesting to say the least. Also, these chips known as the feed, have an overwhelming amount of power over its beholder. These chips control their user. The characters in the book have a reliance on the chips just as us humans have a reliance on our cell phones and other forms of technology. There is an example in the first 50 pages of Feed when Titus and Violet are at a hospital and the ever so powerful “feed” was hacked and was temporarily unavailable.  Titus and Violet had no clue what to do. They did not do anything, Titus and Violet just sat there like lumps on a log. “What do we do” Violet asked, “I didn't know” stated Titus (44). Without the feed, these two characters are basically paralyzed. Once the feed was hacked, the reliance these characters had with the feed was gone. This reminds me a lot of my sister in a strange but very interesting way. She is 15 years old and she is always on her cell phone. One day my family took her phone away for a day. She was going crazy. She did not know how to live without her phone. She didn’t know what to do. What I am trying to get at here is that, the characters in Feed rely on the feed just as humans today rely on their cell phones and technology. It is a scary thought that technology controls our day to day lives even though we do not think it does. I dare you to try and go a day without technology or a cell phone. Then you will see how much our society relies on these devices. The feed controls these characters day to day life just as cell phones and other devices do today with us humans. It is actually very scary to think how much of an effect these items have on our lives. Our minds are being changed by this digital society, without these items we would not be able to function. So I guess what you can say is that we do have a chip in our brain just like the characters in Feed, it may not be a physical chip in our brains but there is definitely a chip that controls our lives. That chip is technology and all of its wonderful components.   

Joe F. Prompt 4

Works Cited

Anderson, M. T. Feed. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick, 2002. Print.