Julia Sheykina 11th ling form Lyceum by Tula State Pedagogical University The Teacher: Mironova A.V.

Feed by M.T. Anderson A future world where television and computers are connected directly into peoples brains I almost think that it is the ultimate destiny of science to exterminate the human race . Thomas Love Peacock

Every day the humanity is creating new machinery to make better and easier its life. And nanotechnologies are getting vitally important. We are getting used to them and we do not notice how they begin controlling us. At first we possess them. A little later they possess us. They intrude into our inner life. They confuse our consciousness and we forget what is really true and what is false, what we should carry about and never forget of. We are all people, not animals. Sympathy, generosity, kindness and tenderness are our major moral qualities. M. T. Anderson describes a very actual problem of peoples dependence on fastpaced world of media images in his novel Feed. Im an active internet user and a TV viewer that is why I just could not avoid this subject. The author of the book tells us a story about teenagers who live in the future world where television and computers are connected directly into peoples brains. Chips, Feeds, are implanted into peoples heads at the very young age and they live with it for all their lives. Feeds are responsible
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for all the humans feelings, emotions and actions. Feeds also carry out functions of mass media and provide wide range of entertainment. Of course, its very convenient to find out and get everything you want with the help of your thoughts. And no one needs to read, write, speak aloud and gain knowledge anymore. Everyone is supersmart now. You can look things automatic, like science and history, - tells Titus about peoples lives changed by feeds. But unfortunately, everything is not as pleasant as it can seem to be at first sight. He adds: Everything we think and feel is taken in by corporations Theyre still going to control everything whether you like it or not. Plus, they keep like everyone in the world employed, so its not like we could do without them. This situation looks like the one we have today. TV has a problem: its carefully controlled and information is presented to Americans by just a few huge corporations. And unfortunately, some people seem to be unable to understand it. And not only Americans have this problem. Its global. The information that is presented by television and newspapers is not objective at all in every country, including Russia. Lets remember and try to analyze a sensational case of Alexander Litvinenkos assassination (he lived on the territory of Great Britain), which caused an international dispute, when Russia refused to extradite his possible assassin, Andrew Lugovoy, to Great Britain. This matter was widely lighted by mass media both in Russia and in Great Britain. And of course, every country ensured its citizens that its position is the only objective one. Both Englishmen and Russians did not have any doubt in their diplomats correctness and did not think over what had really happened. Why is it necessary to think if all the thoughts are dictated? Its horrible because if having got TV, Internet and other means of mass media we are losing the necessity to think. Its almost like in the book, technologies take place of our brains and we seem to want doing nothing with it. Its absolutely convenient for us. To tell the truth, this example is not very obvious, because nowadays to know about what events are taking places in the world is an uncommon quality, especially among young people. We are so thrilled by various entertainments and buying fashionable and modern stuff that we just do not have time for anything else.
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Its slightly touched in the book that the world where our characters live is collapsing. But for the Violet who is the only one who cares of the environment and other people, we would not know about it at all. The feed was implanted in her brain when she was a girl of seven. Its a well known fact that a persons character is forming when he is five or six. Perhaps, that is the reason why she differs from her coevals so much. She is more curious, more observant, cleverer She tries to realize what is going on, she tries to resist her feed. Unfortunately, the payment is too high, its her life There are always people who are against the generally accepted way of life, who can not live with its drawbacks. Usually, they are teenagers who are not paid attention to, because they are all maximalists, or adults who are supposed to be crazy, because its easier to shut our eyes to the problem than try to solve it. There were all these kids, what my dad calls Eurotrash and they were standing in the middle of the square and broadcasting to everyone all these slogans: Chip in my head? Im better off dead!, - when our main character, Titus, tells it, he is really far from understanding these peoples behavior. Or perhaps he understands, but he just does not care. No one cares Nowadays its much spoken that the Internet and TV degrade us, that we stopped reading, but no one does anything to change the situation, because with the help of these kinds of mass media its not hard to earn money, mainly, by advertising stuff. Todays producers are ready for everything to sell their goods. And we do not buy things which are more qualitative, but choose the ones which are better advertised on TV or in the Internet. And its not only about products or equipment. Its much deeper. Lets refer to the latter elections in Russia. Democratic party Edinaya Rossia did its best to take more chairs in the State Duma and establish almost one-party system in the country. Their propaganda leaflets were hung everywhere, they organized free concerts, they advertised themselves on TV and on the radio and so forth to make people vote for them by all means. It is reasonable that they achieved their aim. Its not a democracy, - Violet says about elections in America. Its not a democracy, - I can say about the political situation in Russia. All these mobile phones, MP3 players, computers are being created to distract us from problems of the reality, they are to make us shut our mouths and pretend to be all
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blinded, let politicians do what they want with our world. Its like a toy for a child to make him stop crying. Step by step all these things are getting an essential part of our life: advertisement, tendency to buy modern stuff, technologies which make our life easy as much as possible. Step by step we stop being human beings. We forget about morals. We forget that people around us can suffer and be pleased too. This is the situation of the present. In the book feeds make people be alike, feel and live the same way. We Americans, says Violets father about people around him, people who are playing with stuff, forgetting about the reality, are interested only in the consumption of the products. We have no interest in how they were produced, or what happens to them he pointed at his daughter what happens to them once we discard them, once we throw them away. The feed is not anything fantastic. Its real and the whole world lives with it and depends on it today. The feed is TV, Internet, mobile phones. Its everything we cant imagine our life without, like we cant live without food and water. The name of these chips reflects its essence. They really feed people with mistakes, with disinformation, like chocolate they make lives sweeter. But in the book its too late already. People can not just turn their feeds off, and nowadays we can do ours. If we try to resist it we wont die like Violet. We have still an opportunity to withstand manipulation, to fight and to win. The only matter is whether we need it or not