E. M. Forster's The Machine Stops

E. M. Forster’s short story The Machine Stops, published in 1909, was ahead of its time and predicted many of the technologies we possess now such as instant messaging and the internet. The story takes place in a future society where humans live underground in isolation and rely on a machine for all their needs. Most of their communication is done through screens that are able to show video. The people hardly have face to face contact and when confronting each other, avoid touching (Forster). This may seem akin to a prophecy of what will happen if social media prevails and becomes our only form of contact, but taking a look at the way social media functions now, it only serves to enhance the way a society interacts, both online and in current life.
Social media sites have been formed to cater to the specific wants and needs of the public. These websites, especially with millennials, have become the main way that they communicate and interact socially. With many of these, as can be seen with Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram, it is impossible to gather a complete story or picture of someone’s life from just 140 characters or some artsy image with muted colors that may not even have people in it. Even gathering details from all the sites one person may be associated with can never truly show the full account of a person’s life. And even if that was possible, there is no way of knowing how truthful an individual is portraying themselves.
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An example of this is the video website Vine. The community post videos, but they can only be six seconds long. This may not seem like a long period, however if a video is craftily put together, a story unfolds and leaves people wondering how something that contains a beginning, middle, and end can be developed in a mere six seconds. Some may advertise how social media can be