Feed

I had read Feed for another class (Materials for Young Adults) last spring, and enjoyed it then. However, re-reading it in the context of this class was different. I picked up on things I hadn't noticed before, and it made me think about my own habits.

My favorite part of the book is the dedication - "To all those who resist the feed." Right from the start, Anderson displays an obviously dystopian view of the future. In this future world, consumerism is the name of the game, and everyone's feeds are there to tell them what to buy, what's cool, what to think. Life is simple, and nobody needs to think - the feed thinks for them (see p. 80-81 in the book).

Anderson draws many parallels to today's teens and the teens in the book. They both have their own slang, are tuned into trends, are connected to each other, and experiement with drugs. While teens today use internet short-hand slang (lol, brb, j/k) in everyday speech and writing, the teens in the book use null for boring, unit for guy/girl, mal for bad, and (my favorite), brag for cool. Teens today are connected to each other via always-on cell phones, IM, and social networking sites like MySpace. In the book, the teens are connected via wireless chatlines embedded in their brains. Teens today experiement with all kinds of drugs, from prescription drugs to pot. Teens in the book get scrambled or go mal, which is a way of hacking their internal feeds and going haywire. Feed reminds me of Scott Westerfeld's Uglies series. The teens in that book use their own language, and though they don't have internal feeds, they do have computers monitoring their every move.

I don't know if Anderson's view of the future is possible in the ways he describes it (pod-like homes, vacations on the Moon, flying cars), but the feeds he describes are practically here, they're just not internalized (yet?). We want to be instantly satiated like the kids in the book are - but to the point that nothing is new and exciting? What's clear is that we have become accustomed to instant gratification. Photos can be viewed instantly on a digital camera, and they can be printed in less than an hour. Whole meals can be cooked in the microwave in a matter of minutes. Everything we need is a click away online. Is this good, necessary? Is it good that in the middle of this post, I stopped to check my email? Even while I'm writing, I'm thinking about the myraid other things I could/should/want to be doing online - emailing friends about a party next weekend, seeing if the shoes I want are on sale yet, planning a mini-vacation for November. Doing all of those things requires me to visit many websites. Would it be good if I could just think about all that content and have it delivered to me? The kids in the book would think so.

Personally, Anderson's idea of the feed scares me. Earlier in the week, I signed up for Bloglines and Google Reader. I instantly fell in love with GR - all my feeds in one place! Yes, it's convenient. But is it necessary? Is it that much of a hassle to visit each website? It has simplified my life and cut down on the time I spend online, but is it simplifying me? Technology does save us a lot of time, but we have to be careful not to lose ourselves in order to save a few minutes.