Fahrenheit 451 And Technology Essay

Technologies negative effect on human life Everyday people are surrounded by technology, and it is useful in many ways, but the problems that arise from it cause harm to people socially, physically, and mentally as shown in the movie Wall-E and the book Fahrenheit 451. In the movie, Wall-E the director show the viewer how people are so absorbed in technology that they miss out on everything going on around them. Ray Bradbury the author of Fahrenheit 451 shows the reader how people lose all communications skills and decision making skills due to technology through his story Fahrenheit 451. Each story depicts the future when people rely on technology, but the stories show different aspects of what people will become like. In both Wall-E and Fahrenheit 451 the authors show the reader how people lose the ability to communicate with each other, as well as not being able to see what is going on around them. In the movie, Wall-E the director portrays humans sitting in a hover chair with a screen always in front of them taking the humans completely out of direct contacts with each other. They show people talking to each other through a screen when they sitting side by side. The
director is trying to show how people will lose all sense of direct communication with each other. In life if people ever develop any social skill they need to have face to face communication and the director are showing how that cannot happen with a screen in front of you. Ray Bradbury also shows the how people lose their ability to communicate. Mildred completely immerses herself in technology she is always watching a three wall T.V. As well as always watching the T.V. she always has earbuds in not letting her hear what is actually happening around her. Mildred is always listening or watching something that does not pertain to what is actually happing around her. Mildred always has the earbuds in that she became an “expert in lip reading” (Bradbury 16). By doing this Mildred has lost all communication skills because she is not able to keep a conversation going while she has the earbuds in. In Wall-E the director also shows how people are not able to comprehend what is around them. On the Ship the people are on there is a giant pool with thousands of people around it but not a single person in it. The reason why is that not one person knows that they have a pool because they have always been looking at their screens. Mary one of the passengers finally had her screen turned off and one of the first thing she says is “I didn't know we had a pool! (Wall-E) Mary shows that when you have a screen in front of you, you lose all awareness around you. This is a modern-day problem and has been shown that people are easily distracted, which leads to missing out on real life. It has been proven that when you are on your phone or social media site you are “not tuned into [your] surroundings” (Webb). Technology is destroying people’s communication as well as their awareness on what is happening in life. Technology is also negatively effecting people mentally. Ray Bradbury shows this a lot through Montag as he is trying to read a book. Montag tries to read the Bible, but is barely able to get through the first line. He goes to Faber and asks him to “teach me to understand what I read” (Bradbury 78). Montag was able to read, but he could not understand what he was reading. He did not know how to process anything. This is one of the things Bradbury warns the reader about. Through technology every idea is given to us and people do not need to comprehend or process anything about the topic. Without ever processing what is going on people will blindly except anything that happens. As well as affecting people’s ability to process what they read technology is also effecting people’s memory. Bradbury shows this when montage is trying to remember where him and Mildred first meet. After Montag ask Mildred where they first met she responded with “I don’t know” (Bradbury 40). Bradbury shows that with all the technology around that real life starts to fade away. Important memories like where you first met someone just slip out of your mind replaced with new things that technology gives you. Evan Risko, a professor in psychology has shown that “your ability to remember information…[is] reduced” (Macrae). He has shown that your brain will not remember as much information when getting it from electronic sources because it will always be on the computer. Technology effects everyone’s mental health from being able to comprehend what you read to remembering what you have seen. Technology helps people move around but it comes at a cost of deaths and overdependence on technology.
In Wall-E people become reliant on their hover chairs because they use them so much they can’t walk anymore. Even though in life we have not lost the ability to walk we still rely on technology like the characters in Wall-E do with their hover chairs. We have become reliant on cars to get us places. Technology still effects people in cars as well. As people are driving they often have a phone out. This is a huge negative side effect of technology. In 2014 in the United States of America “3179 lives lost because of distracted driving” (Webb). All the distraction came from cell phone use. Technology like cars are useful in so many ways but it can also end up causing thousands of deaths each
year. Technology is helpful in so many ways, but it causes problems for people socially and mentally. In the movie, Wall-E the producers show the viewers how rely on technology in every aspect of their life along with losing commination skills. In Fahrenheit 451 Ray Bradbury show the reader how technology can destroy people’s ability to process and comprehend everything around them. Technology has been shown useful through cars and knowledge that people can acquire, but all the negative effects are to tremendous to go unnoticed.