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Introduction
Technology is often portrayed in popular media and literature as something that conflicts with man’s safety and well-being. Themes of apprehension regarding technology can be observed even in short stories, which aim to promote awareness towards the negative impact of technology to society. The American author, Ray Bradbury, is one of the many authors that express their activism towards the negative impact of technology. Two of his works, ‘The Veldt’ and ‘The Pedestrian,’ have themes that make people think about the underlying drawbacks of technology. In general, ‘The Veldt’ and ‘The Pedestrian,’ creates awareness about the bad side of technology and how technology can become a curse rather than a blessing. There are, for instance, technologies that have emerged today that are initially considered as groundbreaking, but eventually turned out to be a threat to human existence and well-being. One particular example is the discovery of nuclear power and its related technologies. The invention of the computer, the internet and its related technologies are also considered as revolutionary. However, there are also negative impacts that can be identified with the excessive utilization of these gadgets. Bradbury’s stories are futuristic and fictional in character. However, it implies the reality that no matter how sophisticated and advanced a particular technology is, there are still things that should not be sacrificed for the sake of technological advancement. Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Veldt’ and ‘The Pedestrian’ may have been written more than a half century ago and yet it has not lost its relevance and can even be considered as prophetic. For instead of controlling technology, people today are being unwittingly controlled by the technology that they have created.
Technology as a Threat to Individual Freedom in ‘The Pedestrian’
Set in the year 2053, Bradbury’s ‘The Pedestrian’ is a futuristic short story that tells about a man named Leonard Mead, whose habit is to make long walks every evening (Bradbury 1). It appears, however, that Mr. Mead is the only pedestrian walking the streets at night. Or so it seems that he is the only pedestrian since the community where he lives at appears to be deserted. At this point, the author left the readers hanging. No explanation has been given why the streets are bare at night as well as where has all the people gone. Perhaps there was a curfew that requires people to stay in their houses after a particular time in the night. All of the houses, however, are described in the story as dark (Bradbury 1). It was also not specified whether the people have abandoned their houses or have already gone to sleep. What is explicitly portrayed though, is that the city is unusually still. Whatever the reason is, the inactivity of the city at night was a mystery. It can only be speculated that, perhaps it is because of a certain ordinance that requires the residents to turn off the lights of their houses and avoid going out at night. What is especially interesting in the story is the portrayal of law enforcement. According to the story, law enforcement personnel were on a decline because crime was ebbing and the need for police presence is becoming unnecessary (Bradbury 2). But instead of police personnel patrolling the streets, only automated police vehicles with artificial intelligence are tasked with the job. The author seems to imply that in the future, humans will rely more fully on technology, specifically artificial intelligence in performing almost every task. The problem with artificial intelligence, though, is that it may not be able to comprehend the humanity of an individual. Like what happened in the story wherein Mr. Mead was arrested by the patrolling police car just because it is unable to comprehend why people walk at night just for the sake of walking and seeing, artificial intelligence today is programed to deal with situations in a specific way and so its choices is only limited to how it was programmed by its designer. The story implies that in the future, people will have less freedom on what they wish to do because social systems such as law enforcement will be handled by automated systems that lacks even the basic understanding of human emotion and intuition. Today, such systems are being employed. Lie detector tests and automated driving are a few examples of modern technology that relates to the technology described in Bradbury’s ‘The Pedestrian.’ While these technologies are revolutionary, there are still apprehensions towards the reliability of these systems. There are scholars, for instance, that criticizes the reliability of lie detector tests. Accordingly, “polygraphy is not science” and that polygraph testing is “an unstandardizable procedure that is fundamentally dependent on trickery” (Maschke & Scalabrini 18). In the same way, automated driving could not replace the skill, decision making and intuition of a human driver. As far as safety is concerned, auto driving is technology has not yet reached a point wherein the passenger would have total peace of mind. As observed by experts, “The more “driver aids” you add to a car, the less engaged and less safe the driver becomes, necessitating further aids and so on, until finally you have complete automation and the driving test is a relic of the past”. Consequently, an auto pilot vehicle would make driving skills unnecessary. Auto driving will be the end of skilled driving and humans will become more dependent on technology for their safety as what was portrayed in Bradbury’s ‘The Pedestrian.’
Technology as a Threat to Privacy
As technology advances, crime will be effectively managed by authorities, but it will be done at the expense of the freedom of the people. In the modern setting, such prediction is becoming almost a reality. Today, the government has the technological capability to track people and keep them under surveillance. The threat to an individual’s privacy and freedom, as what happened to Mr. Mead in Bradbury’s ‘The Pedestrian,’ has increased along with the advancement of technology. In the United States, since the 1920s, technology has been used by the government and its national security agencies to track and monitor activities that are identified as suspicious. As observed by experts, a surveillance initiative known as ‘Black Chamber’ was launched as early as the 1920s; the purpose of which is to use technology in order to break codes and monitor any suspicious information that goes in and out of the United States . Such operation would authorize certain government agencies to intercept private communication without their consent. In fact, sometime in the 1940s, the government of the United States has engaged in a clandestine surveillance operation code named ‘Shamrock’. In this particular operation, the United States government utilized the three major communication companies, the RCA Global, ITT and Western Union, in order to gather and provide information for surveillance and counterintelligence. While such initiatives may be necessary for maintaining peace and order as well as national security, the inherent capacity of the government to infringe on an individual’s private life is quite alarming. As the years progress, the capability of people to spy on others are also becoming more advanced. Surveillance today is not only confined within the limits of telecommunication devices. Surveillance cameras, biometrics, facial recognition and even social media and the internet are now being utilized to gather information on target individuals. As technology advances, privacy is also becoming a thing of the past.
‘The Veldt’ and the Perils of Technology
Just like ‘The Pedestrian,’ ‘The Veldt’ has been another precautionary short story authored by Ray Bradbury that cautions people on the negative impacts of technology. It tells about a house specifically built to provide almost everything to its inhabitants. This technologically advanced house can also cook, bath, and rock the couple’s children to sleep. The house’s nursery is uniquely interesting. The room, for instance, was designed to project virtual images and can be controlled telepathically. A couple, George and Lydia Hadley, together with their children, Wendy and Peter Hadley, occupied the house. Although the house provides all the care that they require, the couple becomes increasingly worried about the role that the house plays and its impact on their children’s behavior. They noticed, for instance, that Wendy and Peter are getting too attached to the house, especially in the nursery. As observed by George and Lydia, the children become difficult when they are punished by locking the nursery. Their children are living for the nursery instead of living their lives in the real world. It is also noticeable how the children are having more affection towards the nursery than towards their parents. George and Lydia called on psychologist, David McClean and the latter advised them to “have the whole damn room torn down” and the children brought to him every day for treatment. When George and Linda realized their erroneous decision to live in such a house, it was already too late. The children have already been too attached to the house, specifically to the nursery, to be denied of it. As observed by McClean, the room and the house have replaced George and Lydia in their children’s affection. The children’s attachment to the house was too deep that when George and Linda decided to leave the house for good, the children themselves, using the ability of the room to make virtual images come to life, killed their own parents.
Bradbury’s ‘The Vendt’ may be fictional, but sends a strong message about the perils of relying too much on technology. The story can never be more relevant, especially in the modern context wherein children are becoming too attached to new technologies. The story of ‘The Vendt,’ for instance, can be strongly related to the attachment of today’s youth towards gadgets most particularly on smartphones and computers. In the United States, 90% of the population owns a smartphone . Unlike the traditional cell phones wherein the application is only limited to telephone and communication functions, the smartphone can be considered as a tiny computer and can be as powerful as a traditional laptop or personal computer. This gadget is used by people to do almost anything. With its numerous software and applications, the smartphone does not only serve as a gadget for personal communication, but can also double as an organizer or a minicomputer for work or recreation purposes. For most people, life without their smartphone is almost unimaginable. As observed by experts, many people today are spending more time in their smartphones than the time they spend doing other things such as watching TV or doing a hobby . This observation could not be more accurate since it is easily observable that even during at work or even during their free time, most people have the habit of checking their phones for messages or using their phones to access social media and other internet sites. Similarly, the popularity of computers has not waned since it was developed and introduced in the market. Computers become even more popular with the development of the internet. The computer and the internet also opened many opportunities of technological advancement. Most people today are tying up their businesses and personal activities online because it offers many advantages and conveniences. People, for instance, can instantly communicate and share files over the internet. Not only has that, the computer and the internet also become a platform of social media wherein individuals can interact with each other simultaneously. Businesses are also becoming highly dependent on computer technology and the internet for their business transactions. The technology of cloud computing, for instance, provides a remote IT solution for businesses that wish to have their systems accessed online so that they can outsource their processes anywhere in the globe for as long as there is an internet connection. This particular technology has made the outsourcing of contact centers abroad possible, which enabled business to save from labor costs in their mainland. It can be easily observed that almost everything is interconnected with computers and the internet. Scholars define this interconnectedness as the ‘internet of things;’ a term that was first coined in 1999 by Kevin Ashton, which refers to the growing and deepening connection of the computer and the internet to almost all human endeavors (Gubbi, Buyya, Marusic, & Palaniswami).
Negative Consequences of Over Reliance to Technology
Like the tragic events that happened in Bradbury’s ‘The Vendt,’ society’s increasing reliance on technology can have serious consequences. Some scholars, for instance, observed that over exposure to computer and its related technologies can cause mental and psychological impairment. According to author and technology activist, Nicholas Carr, constant exposure to computers and the internet can make people dumb. Since information can be easily accessed online, Carr believes that the current computer and internet technology encourages people to become lazy, which could result to poor memorization abilities because of the readily available information. The many distractions the people experience when they are using a computer is also considered by Carr as a major drawback wherein people tend to multitask and eventually loses focus of the task at hand. Excessive computer use is quite rampant, especially among young people because of computer gaming. According to statistics, in the United States, 97% of young people, including children and adolescents are engage in computer games (Granic, Lobel, & Engels 66). Computer gaming has become so popular today that some people already consider it as a sport and has become one of the most lucrative business within the entertainment industry. In fact, even traditional sports channel such as ESPN cover computer gaming competitions also known as esports because of the projected growth of this multimillion dollar industry. Researchers, however, are concerned that excessive exposure to computer games has a negative impact in the mental and physical development of children. Depression, Anxiety and aggressive behavior are just a few of the negative mental impacts of computer game addiction (Prot, Anderson, Gentile, Brown, & Swing, 119). The physical inactivity associated with extended hours of computer gaming can also cause adverse health issues, such as obesity, peripheral neuropathy and repetitive strain injuries. Just like computers, the excessive use of smartphones is also associated with psychological, emotional and social impairment. Research has shown, for instance, that smartphones can become addictive; the effect of which is similar with the compulsive behavior of drug and alcohol addicts (Lee, Chang, Lin, & Cheng 378). Excessive use of smartphones is also associated with “sleep disorders, problems with concentration and physical pain, especially in the neck and wrist, and negatively influence the work-life balance by blurring boundaries between work and private life” (Bernroider, Krumay, Margiol 1).
Conclusion
Despite the fact that the stories were written more than six decades ago, Ray Bradbury’s The Pedestrian’ and ‘The Veldt,’ accurately predicted the predicament that the advancment of technology will bring to the modern world. In these fictional stories, Bradbury was able to capture the dilemma that technology brings. It appears that the apprehension of the author sixty years ago regarding the negative impact of technology on human lives is gradually becoming a reality. Today, technology has threatened to adversely impact individual freedom and human privacy. Technology today is also seen as a threat to the physical and mental well-being of individuals. Technology, therefore, can either be a blessing or a curse; and if people are not aware of its positive and negative impacts, technology can become a trap for those who are poorly informed.
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