The World As We Know It (Revised with captions)

THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT
Cellphones, computers, televisions, and ipods are a big part of our lives. Whether we want to admit or not most of us are addicted to some sort of digital stimulation. Now the real questions are why are we so addicted, who made us this way, and what will it be like for future generations. Throughout this paper we will be looking at evidence to try to gain some insight to these questions.

Argument 1:
On the train we see people constantly using their ipods. While they are walking down the street, they're texting. When kids get home from school, they turn on the tv to see what's on. People are constantly checking their facebook pages and emails. It's a non stop world of digital interaction out there and people have come to really depend on it. Although I have tried to figure out why we are so addicted before I still don't have every possible reason I think. I have talked about boredom, social status or awkwardness, and even being accustomed. But there might still be possibilities out there such as social acceptance, to show economical status, an escape from reality.
All of these are good topics to touch on. In the book Feed all of these topics are looked at. Such as boredom. Whenever the kids get bored they start watching stuff on their feed. Or with social status or awkwardness, Violet confesses to Titus that her parents never had feeds when they were younger and how people use to make them feel less of what they really were because they didn't have feeds. They got Violet a feed because they didn't want her to go through the hardships they went through without the feed. The kids being accustomed to the feed is shown when they disconnect them from the feed after the old guy causes them to malfunction. They are so used to it they don't know what to do when they don't have it. And when their friend Loga comes to visit and she still has it they all crowd around her, jealous that she still has her feed.
Social acceptance is kind of how Violet's parents get her a feed so that she is not made fun of in school or looked at differently than the rest of the kids. They give into the "feed". The economical status part is when we find out in the book that Violet couldn't afford a feed for a long time. So it shows us that there are still poor people in this world that can't afford the feed. If you do have the feed your obviously up in the financial class and your looked at differently than someone who isn't. The feed is also an escape from reality and they show us that all throughtout the book. Like when Titus is upset and he just starts playing games on the feed to get away from thinking. Or when they are in the hospital and Loga is describing what's happening in that teen soap opera show and they are all so into it. Even the guys who usually don't watch it. They become so involved in the feed world that they don't even focus on what's going on in the real world. To be continued...

Argument 2:
Now we can't blame being dependent on anyone really. No one put a gun to our head and said use this cellphone until your brain explodes. But maybe there are people that we should point the finger at. Such as our parents. My parents are always complaining about how much I'm on my cellphone but at the same time they pay for my bill and allow me to use it so what's the problem. Or how they say that we rarely spend any quality time together but when we are together the tv is on. Little things like this affect what I'm going to do with electronics.
I think we also put the electronics too much in little kid's faces. For example, my 5 month old brother LOVES cellphones. I don't think he understands what they are but he likes the light and sounds it makes. My family encourages him playing with it by buying him a play phone or flashing their phone in front of him. We also just recently opened his walker and it has a play ipod on it that plays nursery rhymes which he loves.
This leads me to my next people I want to blame, the industries that make these things. They push and push their supplies until we fall into their traps. They make us think that the ipod that just came out is better than the one we have even though it works perfectly fine.
Last of all, I want to blame ourselves. We continue to give in everytime they come out with something new. We buy it and than advertise it to our friends and family without ever really thinking about if it's really worth what we spent. We let ourselves be fooled by how good it looks on tv or how "cool" we would look if we had it. To be continued...

Argument 3:
For the future (if there is one past 2012) what do you think the electronics are going to be like? How much more dependent are we going to be? Will the computers ever crash like they were once suppose to or will robots soon dominate our world? These are all good questions to think about and ponder. To be continued...


Works Cited
-Feed by M.T. Anderson (so far)