The Influence Of Technology In The Veldt By Ray Bradbury

Forget about paper, books, and actual work ethic - in today’s tech savvy society, anyone can get just about anything done with the touch of a button or a simple voice command. Smart devices have wiggled their way into every aspect of life, but there’s no denying that these gadgets and gizmos can be used in many conventional ways today. Most would see this intrusion as a fun, creative, and much needed progression in society, but Ray Bradbury depicts a much more sinister reality that these devices create. In Bradbury's future, humans are dull, lifeless slaves to technology, robbed of the very quality that makes humans human: complex, intellectual minds. If humans do not take action, smart devices will become far too trusted and begin to alter

While these devices may seem helpful now, given time, they will evolve into something akin to technology found in Ray Bradbury’s The Veldt. The story tells of the Hadley family who install a high-tech, “Happylife Home,” which, “...clothed and fed and rocked them to sleep and played and sang and was good to them.” While the family is mostly content with their home, one room in particular - the nursery - starts to worry the parents. Strange events surrounding the nursery start to occur, and one night, the father finds an old wallet of his in the nursery with blood, saliva, and chew marks on it. While normal people may call the police or leave their home immediately when faced with such an ominous sight, the Hadley family goes to bed like nothing happened. Their actions are certainly not normal, but perhaps their outlandish thinking, or lack thereof, is not their fault. The article, “Stop Relying on Your Smartphone to Think for You, Scientists Say,” describes a study conducted by psychologists where smartphone users were mentally tested. The psychologists concluded that, “People typically forgo effortful analytic thinking,” in exchange for quick answers a smartphone can provide. The fact that researchers are already seeing negative effects tied to smartphones is troubling - Just imagine the mentality people will have 50 years from