Civilization Vs Technology

Improved Essays
Technology is a basic part of the lives of people. Technology is defined as the use of science in industry, engineering, etc., to invent useful things or to solve problems (“Technology”). The people of “The Machine Stops” and people today have become extremely dependent on technology. “The Machine Stops” is a foreshadowing of what the world we live in today may become if people do not become less dependent on technology. While the civilization described in “The Machine Stops” and the civilization today can be compared through a discussion of the technology available to each communication, daily life, entertainment, and transportation, both civilizations share the potential danger of technology control.
First, communication allows people to
…show more content…
The people in the underground society of “The Machine Stops” use technology in every aspects of their daily life. The people of the underground did not do anything for themselves. For example, food was brought to the people of the underground at the push of a button. The food was the same for all people and they did not see a problem with that. Medicine was also delivered to them. Instead of going to see a doctor or a doctor coming to them when the people were sick, they would push a button and whatever medicine they needed for their symptoms would appear. Another form of technology in daily life was the beds. Each bed was the same for each person. The beds were summoned when a person would push a button and the beds would come out of the wall. Daily life in today’s society has many of the same features. Food delivery services allow for people to have food brought to them rather than having to leave their homes. Medicine is used in a new form called telemedicine. This type of medicine allows for people today to tell a doctor their symptoms through technology and the medicine is brought to them. Unlike the people of “The Machine Stops,” beds in today’s society are being made in a variety of sizes to fit the needs of human sizes. Beds in today’s society have taken on many other technologies as well. For instance, companies now make beds that each person forms to their body and he or she decides how they want to sleep. …show more content…
Entertainment for the people of the underground was brought to them in the forms of music and computers. Music for the people of the underground was played through the machine. The people had no say in what music they listened too because it was the same for everyone. Computers also allowed the people to listen to the lectures given by the Machine repeatedly. In today’s society, entertainment by technology is used more than actually going out and doing activities. Music is listened to by everyone in today’s society. Many people in today’s society use music while doing basic things throughout the day. Computers in today’s society have taken over things that we certainly could do by ourselves. Entertainment in “The Machine Stops” and entertainment in today’s society are very similar in the way that technology is taking over our lives just like it has taken over that in the lives of the people of “The Machine

Related Documents

  • Decent Essays

    Loren Eisley’s “The Bird and the Machine” takes a deeper look at the gap between rapidly developing technology, and the subsequent place that it’s taking in the world, as compared to the natural order of things. He expresses his opinion passionately and portrays the urgency of what he is saying using several effective rhetorical strategies. Though this essay includes strong appeals to pathos and is based on an interesting juxtaposition, he has created an overall weak piece because of an extremely lack-luster pattern of development, as well as a glaring absence of an appeal to logos or ethos. Though the content is strong, it lacks credibility and the reader quickly loses interest, and feels unsatisfied by the ending. That is not to discredit the content itself.…

    • 547 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Decent Essays
  • Great Essays

    Technology Domination INTRODUCTION 1. What do you think of a world without work? An endless vacation, or wondering how you will put dinner on the table? The possibilities are endless.…

    • 1597 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Great Essays

    Carr predominantly focuses on culture and how technology is linked to society and has many respected articles in major journals, which makes Carr a highly credible source about technology and human behavior. Carr’s recurring themes in his essay brought his point across because of the consistency that was created. The themes that car went back and forth with were peace and the busy…

    • 1492 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The bullies had an easy access to torment Sedwick and to encourage her to commit suicide by using technology. She struggled to escape from technology; however technology has “started to takeover in every possible form” (Desciscio). Society use technology in your everyday life, whether you are aware of it or not. “From the minute you get up to the minute you go to sleep” (Madam) society finds a way to incorporate technology. Alarm clock, television, telephone, and music are just a few appliances that society consider a necessity in daily life.…

    • 882 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nicholas Carr vs Kevin Kelly Imagine a world where the internet, electronic devices, smartphones, or any type of technology that you have ever known, did not exist. How could you live without these tools? Technology has been innovating society for the past centuries. People all around the world have been benefited by the new products that technology has to offer. It is almost impossible to imagine a society without technology.…

    • 817 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Technology itself, however, is not to blame for their termination. The life the family spent together was to be as normal as they were able to make it, without technology’s total influence over them. Mere seconds before their passing, their silhouettes were marked on the wall of what they were doing. There was “a man mowing the lawn” (Bradbury 25), two children playing ball together, and “a woman bent to pick flowers” (Bradbury 25). Technology was in a large part of their lives, but it did not overrun or consume their way of living.…

    • 945 Words
    • 4 Pages
    • 2 Works Cited
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Technology can be spotted nearly everywhere a person is in this day and age. It consumes the human race. It allows people to discover millions of new and lifesaving things. However, it can also cause awful and even fatal effects.…

    • 1451 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Individualism In Anthem

    • 915 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Accordingly, Forster in “The Machine Stops” also creates a dystopian society. However, his new world lives underground, and tunnels are used to get to the surface of the Earth. Also, Forster shows what would happen to a world too dependent on technology. The machines start taking over the world, and human contact is rare. The people in the book mostly see each other through video calls such as Vashti who becomes attached to the machine and worships it.…

    • 915 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Neil Postman expresses that society is affected in five major ways from the coming of technology; stating that first technology is a trade-off, second, technology is never distributed fairly, third there are forms of social and political prejudices in all technology, fourth technology is not additive; but is ecological, and fifth, technology leads to become mythic. In the world’s society today, the five points of Neil Postman’s essay, is a tunneled viewpoint of specific events and not than the grand view of the global community that have been affected by technology Postman chose his study groups and viewpoints to help support his five claims. However, in doing so, he left his ideas narrow and opinions straightforward. He neglected to subject the five points to an entire global scale, by only allowing specific areas to support his reasoning and as a result the five points became biased. Societies adapt to technology in different ways; religious views and political power, influence how societies take and use technology.…

    • 1187 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Neil Postman expresses that society is affected in five major ways from the coming of technology; stating that first technology is a trade-off, second, technology is never distributed fairly, third there are forms of social and political prejudices in all technology, forth technology is not additive; but is ecological, and fifth, technology leads to become mythic. In the world’s society today, the five points of Neil Postman’s essay, is a tunneled viewpoint of specific events rather than the grand view of the global communities that have been affected by technology. Postman chose his study groups and viewpoints to help support his five claims. However, in doing so, he left his ideas narrow and opinions straightforward. He neglected to subject…

    • 1363 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Nowadays technology in general view limits people’s life experiences. In a book by Susan Maushart, she The Winter of our Disconnect talks about the experiences a family of our go through when they abandon technology for a entire winter. her experiences when she and her family abandoned technology for an entire winter. She says that “I wanted my kids to experience this… to enlarge themselves to discover themselves.…

    • 1497 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    However, the resulting societal complications include technology’s enslavement of humans, an ignorant and unwavering trust in computers, the inevitable dehumanization of those individuals reduced to the lower class, and the myth that hard work brings prosperity and prestige. While it seems as if American society, like Vonnegut’s mechanized society in Player Piano, is a technologically advanced utopia in which human life is enhanced by automation, it becomes clear that this reliance on machines is actually a dystopian way of life. Vonnegut demonstrates the process of humans becoming slaves to technology through the use of machines determining the intelligence, skills, and career of every individual member of society. Not only does technology assist in deciding the usefulness of each human, but it essentially establishes a predetermined and invariable destiny for everyone.…

    • 1462 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Analysis: “The Judgment of Thamus” by Neil Postman Professor and writer, Neil Postman, in his story, “The Judgment of Thamus” claims that today’s technology has both positive and negative effects on society and the world as a whole. Postman starts out writing about the positives and negatives of technology but slowly drifts towards the negative side, attempting to persuade the audience into thinking that technology is harmful to society. Postman’s claim that technology has a multitude of negative effects on society is an overreaction that relies on a truly pessimistic world view. First, Postman introduces opinions of well known people such as Plato, Marshall McLuhan, and Freud to convince the audience that the arguments he states are valid. He builds a blunt view of technology by including some of these views on technology.…

    • 636 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    Essay About Electricity

    • 1500 Words
    • 6 Pages

    When comparing the technological world of today with that of hundreds of years ago, it is amazing how much technology has advanced and evolved into essential aspects of everyday life. Fifty years ago, inventions such as electricity, railways, and the internet were non-existent. It is hard to believe that in today’s day in age, everyone is so dependent on these creations. They have connected the world in ways that were thought to be impossible hundreds of years ago. The world went from having no electricity, railways, or internet, to being reliant on these inventions every single day.…

    • 1500 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    In today´s world, modern technology is everywhere. We are surrounded by it, either you are on Facebook talking with someone from England or you´re watching the Indian news live on YouTube. With modern technology we have become a global world. It makes everybody connected in some way or another. Technology has not only contributed to the global world, but also scientific research such as creating new medicine, finding new planets and so.…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays