Immersed in the "feed"

In the book I’m reading in my Media Issues class this semester called, “Media/Society,” about industries, images and audiences, we are reminded *yawn* that the “increase in media options in recent years has even led to an increase in ‘multitasking’ – using more than one form of media at a time” (p. 5). Ya think?!?! I can’t imagine my life without media multitasking; I am constantly immersed. Right now I have the television on, I just received a text and sent one back to a friend, all the while doing homework online and managing my RSS feed. I could throw in that there’s some music playing too, but you get the point.

Ya wanna talk about media multitasking? Imagine what life would be like with an embedded brain internet feed? In M.T. Anderson’s book “Feed” we are met with a group of teens set in a futuristic world where uber-technology has converged electronics and telecommunications into the human brain. Called the “feednet” it combines everything we know today about electronics and communication, data collecting and corporate power (and what it might become), and made humans to be completely dependant and obsessed on consumer culture. It’s a bit scary and sad at the same time because it really is a legit theory on the future, that is, if we continue to allow ourselves to be obsessed with immediate gratification in our computer-consumed society.

“…there was this great promotion, where if you talked about the great taste of Coca Cola to your friends like a thousand times, you got a free six-pack of it, so we decided to take them for some meg ride by all getting together and being like, Coke, Coke, Coke, Coke for about three hours so we’d get a year’s supply. It was a chance to rip off the corporations, which we all thought was a funny idea” (Feed p. 158).

But the best part is that most of the teens in the book don’t even realize the feed's wrong or acknowledge the role it plays—until it’s gone, of course. Media/Society, a dated “textbook” (it was printed in 2000, which is pretty much archaic, considering how rapidly technology changes), acknowledges how dependant we are to media TODAY let alone in the future, “One way to recognize the importance of the media in our lives is to imagine life without media” (p. 5).

There is a time in the book Feed where the teens are without their feednet for some time because of a “hack.” Imagine a week in our lives today without the internet, let alone technology, and then imagine that hundreds of years in the future. Moral of the story: America is addicted to technology convergence and consumerism and is submissive to corporate power and advertisements. Think before you log on, cause one day we might not have a choice.