How Can Technology Misguide Society In Harrison Bergeron

Technology is neither good nor evil until put in the hands of humans. In “Harrison Bergeron” by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. a young fourteen year-old boy tries to overthrow the government. While taking over a television broadcast, he tries to free the citizens from their handicaps that were placed on them by the law. “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury, shows Leonard Mead walking alone through the streets of a computerized city and after a while is arrested by an unmanned police car. Government regulated media and technological handicaps made to hinder abilities in “Harrison Bergeron” and the overuse of technology in “The Pedestrian” shows that if used incorrectly, technology could misguide society and have terrible ramifications.

The society in “Harrison

Bergeron” puts a lot of their trust in the media and attains all of their information about the world from the news. One day, George and Hazel Bergeron were watching television when an urgent news bulletin interrupted their show. It stated that Harrison Bergeron had escaped from jail and “should be regarded as extremely dangerous”(Vonnegut 3). In reality, Harrison is only a fourteen year-old boy who wishes that everyone could be free from their government issued handicaps. The Government in “Harrison Bergeron” used the media to manipulate their citizens into believing that Harrison’s actions could be destructive to the society. By doing this, everyone feared Harrison, ultimately leading to the failure of removing the handicaps from the citizens. By having the government regulating the media, citizens can only believe what they are told, making Harrison’s actions a failure from the beginning.
The handicaps in “Harrison Bergeron” shows how technology has been improperly used. These handicaps consist of earpieces for those with higher intellectual capabilities, weights for people stronger than others, and masks to hide the beauty of citizens. The handicaps in “Harrison Bergeron” were meant to make everyone equal but only made the lives of the citizens with handicaps a struggle.
In “The Pedestrian” society has advanced to the point where in-person socializing is no longer needed. Everyone stays in their homes and watches television. Leonard Mead is the only person to be seen wandering the streets. “In ten years of walking by night or day, for thousands of miles, he never met another person walking, not once in all that time” ( Bradbury 1). Leonard lives in a society in which traditional activities such as strolling the streets are seen as abnormal. The citizens would rather live their lives connected to technology than experience the world outside their house. Due to this obsession with technology, the police stop Leonard in the street, suspicious as to why he was walking. After an interrogation Leonard is arrested and taken to a “Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies”(Bradbury 2). Technology became such a necessity in the citizens lives that when faced with someone not using it, he was taken away in a police car.