Summary Of August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains

Along with being harmful to both one’s social and mental health, over-reliance on technology is detrimental to one’s physical health. All sorts of technology have different effects on people’s health, but certain kinds are more toxic than others. Some of the worst known kinds are radioactive and nuclear technologies, two very fragile yet unpredictable and explosive sources of energy. People love to find new sources of energy and power for all the electricity they use for their technology, like their televisions, phones, and appliances, because fossil fuels are so limited and are sure to run out eventually; but seldom do they consider the risks that come with such unstable resources. Too often there are news stories of a nuclear reactor
In his story, “August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains,” Bradbury addresses the possible outcome of too much experimentation and too much nuclear or radioactive technology use: “The water pelted windowpanes, running down the charred west side where the house had been burned evenly free of its white paint. The entire west face of the house was black, save for five places… The five spots of paint---the man, the woman, the children, the ball---remained. The rest was a thin charcoaled layer.” This, along with the description of a “city of rubble and ashes” that gave off a radioactive glow at night and a dog that was “once huge and fleshy, but now gone to bone and covered with sores,” make it easy to infer that some sort of nuclear accident victimized this city of Allendale, California and all of its inhabitants with it. Since the house was so technologically advanced that it could do every task without the need for one to even flip a switch, one can also assume that the reliance on technology and therefore electricity was immeasurable. Nuclear meltdowns and accidents typically occur when reactors overheat or the amount of power it produces overwhelms the space that
In today’s world this happens as well. However, other, more commonplace technologies have negative side effects to people’s physical health every day. Cell phones, small that they are in comparison to a nuclear reactor, give off radiation all the time. They use it to send signals to cell phone towers, but these waves can be very bad for humans. Also, computers, televisions, and tablets can all cause short-term problems with people’s eyesight. According to Amanda Chan of www.livescience.com, no research has proven any damage to eyesight to be permanent, but people may get severe headaches, dry eyes, and/or eye strain, which means the muscles in the eye get tired and feel strained after looking at a screen for a long period of time. Many people will complain to their ophthalmologists, saying there is something wrong with their eyes; in reality, most eye discomfort today is caused by overusing technology and looking at screens for too long. So not every side effect may be as severe as death from a nuclear explosion, but it is clear that relying on technology for everything and using it at all times will always have negative consequences on